


Squeaky Clean

by FrancesHouseman



Category: Supernatural
Genre: A few perfunctory cases, Alchemist!Sam, Angst, Blood Addiction, Blood Sharing, Cursed Object, Demon Dean Winchester, Doppelganger, Drinking, Dubious Science, Emotional Manipulation, First Time, M/M, Masturbation, Nostalgic!Sam, Orgasm Denial, Sibling Incest, Spoilers for Episode: s09e23, Violence, auditory voyeurism, dean playing with fire, demonic dancing, probably some fluff too, sam coming in his pants
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-19
Updated: 2014-08-23
Packaged: 2018-02-05 08:04:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 22,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1811242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FrancesHouseman/pseuds/FrancesHouseman
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean’s bleeding heart, usually so easy for Sam to see because he wears it on his sleeve, is …gone? …hidden? …no longer bleeding? It’s no longer in evidence anyway.</p><p>Sam's damn well going to clean up the demonic oil-slick contaminating his brother.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Forest Glades and Unicorns

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There’s no sex in this chapter - it’s all innuendo/build-up etc. so adding a warning for non-con would make no sense… BUT! It’s pretty violent. So please see the end of the chapter notes for spoilery warnings if you’re concerned

 

 

Of course Dean doesn’t tell Sam that he came back _as a demon_ but Sam figures it out almost straight away anyway. Sam’s smart. He researches Cain and it doesn’t take long for things to fall into place.

 

Sam does some yelling but Dean doesn’t leave. In fact, Dean’s reactions to Sam are very dissatisfying. Dean yells back a bit and flashes his eyes green-black, black-green for effect but Sam has the feeling that he is being humoured.

 

Sam alternates between rage and misery. He rages at Dean, God, Crowley, Cas, their dead father, Metatron, Cain and anyone else it occurs to him to blame. Mostly he rages at Dean because otherwise he has to rage at himself, which triggers the moping and drinking. He spends too many days half-cut and hopeless.

 

It’s subtle but Dean makes sure that they’re together. He makes it seem casual but always knows where Sam is. Whenever he disappears for hours in the evening (and Sam suspects that he disappears with Crowley) he’s always home at night. He’s always around, with half a demon-eye on his brother.

 

But this new Dean is ice cool in a way that human Dean could only have aspired to be, and the difference is that Dean’s bleeding heart, usually so easy for Sam to see because he wears it on his sleeve, is …gone? …hidden? …no longer bleeding? It’s no longer in evidence anyway. He still jokes around but his sense of humour, already pretty merciless, has taken on a decidedly sinister edge. He never once worries for Cas and the depleting grace. Sam picks at it like a scab. He tries to reminisce about Ellen and Jo and the Roadhouse days and Dean goes along with it, but there’s no compassion. Sam gives it up after Dean makes a bad joke about Jo, which is probably why he did it.

 

The worst thing that Dean does is crossing the invisible lines they never even acknowledged before. He doesn’t do it because he really _wants_ Sam that way, but because he wants to _annoy_ Sam, like it’s nothing. It’s taking something sacred (unacknowledged, yes, but sacred nevertheless) and mocking it, mocking _them_. It makes Sam crazy. He wants to hurt Dean but he can’t. He gets so angry and all he wants to do is make Dean sorry, make him pay. Sam wants to make his brother _cry,_ but the new circumstances make that even more unlikely than usual.

 

Sam says some really bad shit to Dean. He accuses him of being selfish for getting killed, and throwing Sam by the wayside. He brings up their father, makes comparisons with Dean and, when that doesn’t get the desired response, accuses Dean of being more selfish than dad. He reiterates about not wanting to be brothers, which was a tall story the first time round, and Dean plays hurt. He plays angry but Sam can tell the difference: it’s not real.

 

Sam does succeed in upsetting himself quite badly. He spends a whole drunken evening sobbing into his pillow, praying that somewhere inside Dean knows that he doesn’t mean any of it. The next day, after the painkillers kick in, Sam goes back to his books. He has to do _something._

 

 

****

 

 

When Sam was missing a soul he would never voluntarily have taken it back. When he was a blood junkie he would never voluntarily have given it up, or even been able to on his own. He figures that it’s something like this for Dean and decides to use force.

 

It’s too easy really. There’s probably no need for the devil’s trap because Dean can’t exactly smoke out, but there’s one under the rug anyway, just to be safe. He hopes that Dean would rather be human than return to Hell but he can’t be sure of anything.

 

It’s a smooth move when Sam snaps the devil’s trap handcuffs on Dean. Even though Dean’s guard was down, because it generally is around Sam, it’s still a pretty slick twist and reach. Sam imagines himself saying, _Hell yeah_ _I’m Batman_ , in an imitation of Dean’s voice, and immediately feels a fresh pang of regret.

 

Dean looks furious for a heartbeat and then goes absolutely still. “Got me good now Sammy. What you planning to do with me?”

 

There’s blatant innuendo in Dean’s tone. His expression is the well-used come-hither look that Dean has used to win over hundreds of waitresses. It still makes arousal thrum through Sam, even though he knows it’s stupid, that it’s a jibe. Behind it there’s Dean’s cold, dark fury.

 

Sam’s heart is hammering with apprehension and part of him can’t believe he’s doing this, but Dean has crossed that line again, just strolled over it, and Sam remembers why he’s angry. The anger reclaims him. It wins out.

 

When Sam brings out the syringe, Dean realises what’s about to happen. “Oh hell no.” His eyes snap to black, awash with demon oil, and he looks absolutely furious; terrifying, even to Sam. He struggles for real, thrashing and twisting.

 

Sam grabs for the back of Dean’s neck but Dean’s faster, twisting and biting deep into the flesh of Sam’s hand.

 

“Ow you fucker!”

 

Dean’s breathes heavily, nostrils flaring, murder in his coal-pit eyes. “Let me. The fuck. Out,” Dean snarls at him and it’s ugly. “ _Sam_ ,” he adds, and he makes it sound like another insult, like he meant to say _fucker_. Sam has him good and angry. He’ll do well not to screw this up.

 

The hair’s too short on Dean’s back and sides to grab, so Sam goes for the top of his head. He yanks Dean’s head back and his palm throbs, which just irritates him and makes him pull harder.

 

“Sammy!” The name makes Sam pause in his one-handed fumbling with the syringe of blood. “I don’t want this! What if it goes wrong?” Dean has cleared the black from his eyes but they’re still wrong. Sam can read calculation in the move.

 

Is nothing sacred to this thing, this _beast_ that Dean has become? It makes Sam see red. Dean is only ever precious of Sam. He’s _always_ willing to throw himself under the metaphorical train for Sam’s sake, which, okay, isn’t exactly healthy, but that’s how Dean is, damnit, and Sam wants him back. He welcomes the anger now, lets it wash over him. He imagines that his eyes are as black as Dean’s. “It’s just my blood, Dean. Nothing to be scared of.”

 

“No!” Dean yells, “NO!” But Sam’s bringing the needle up and Dean’s got nowhere to go.

 

“Your blood, my blood,” Sam continues, hands steady, “Practically the same thing anyway. You, me…” He sinks the syringe into the base of his brother’s neck, amongst the straining tendons, “…yours … _mine_.”

 

The plunger goes in slowly and Dean’s hands go taut in the cuffs, fingers flying out and metal clinking. “Mine Dean,” Sam repeats. “I’m fucking fixing you.”

 

Dean’s eyes screw shut. When Sam’s done, and the syringe is free, his head flops forwards.

 

“Dean.” Sam’s voice is soft. Seeing Dean this way, defeated and broken, makes a guilty feeling creep in his guts. “Dean, look at me.” He tilts Dean’s head up by the chin and when Dean’s eyes open they’re beautifully, genuinely, green.

 

“Sam.” Dean’s voice is hoarse, wrecked. He looks so sad that Sam’s heart breaks a little, and yet Sam’s so happy because this is the Dean he wanted back, right where he belongs. He braces both hands against Dean’s shoulders and drinks his fill of those forest depths, thinking, _Home, you came home_.

 

“Hurts Sammy,” Dean says, voice pleading for Sam to make it stop.

 

“I know, I’m sorry. Just… tell me how it feels, okay? I need to know how to fix this.”

 

Dean’s tries on his trademark so-sue-me smirk but Sam can tell that he’s still hurting. He loves him all the more for it. “It _hurts_ Sam,” he says. He shakes his head a bit. “I dunno, like clear water suddenly. Like spring pools and forest glades and fucking rainbows and unicorns.”

 

 _That’s right,_ Sam thinks _, Forest glades and scrying pools and nothing in this world or the next so beautiful._

“I mean, it’s still there but it’s like it’s been pushed down or something.” Dean’s trying to hide it but Sam can see that he’s spooked.

 

Sam thinks about Crowley snapping, _You don’t know what it’s like to be human!_ and Dean looking so needy, and he hugs him. _Hell,_ he thinks, _Dean did die after all; he’s due a Winchester welcome-back hug._ “I’m going to fix this,” Sam breathes, low into Dean’s neck, and feels him shudder.

 

Sam’s aware that most hugs between adults are more symbolic than theirs. He used to get hugs from friends at college, particularly some of the girls who seemed to prefer hugs to any other form of greeting. He would wrap his long arms around them and sometimes even squeeze a little, if it was a close friend. Sometimes he’d lift them off the ground for a squeal of pleasure. Sometimes he’d spin them too.

 

Hugging Dean is nothing like that, neither is it anything like the tentative back-patting he might receive from other hunters like Jodi after near-miss incidents and narrow escapes. Hugging Dean is compulsive and fierce, and when Dean hugs back, like he does now, it’s like clenching teeth. Sam would be the top rows and Dean would be the bottom teeth, the lower jaw. They fit together so tight it’s like fusion.

 

There’s a low whistle from the corner of the room and Sam jerks back, away from Dean. He can feel colour burn in his cheeks, like he’s twelve and he’s been caught with his pants down by a grown-up. It makes his temper flare in defence. “Fuck off Crowley.”

 

“Well boys,” Crowley sounds far too pleased with himself, like it’s an early Christmas. He should be rubbing his hands together but he isn’t. “Is this more of your patented awkward tension or have I finally walked in on some tasty incest?”

 

“Sammy,” Dean says, low and only for Sam, “Get me outta these.” He rattles the cuffs gently for emphasis. Sam works quickly, grinding the heel of his boot over the point of the rug where he knows the chalk-line will break the trap.

 

“Because, you know, it’s not a bad place to start,” Crowley continues conversationally, “On your _Adventures in Demonhood_ , as it were.” He makes to brush invisible flint from his pinstriped arm in a bored gesture but then catches sight of the empty syringe. “Well well well, what have we here?”

 

Sam takes a breath to demand that, seriously, Crowley should _fuck off_ , but Crowley holds up his hand and Sam is suddenly unable to speak. Or breathe. Shit. The hand gesture is probably only for Dean’s benefit.

 

“I know that this makes me something of a hypocrite,” Crowley says, directly to Dean, “But that,” he nods his head at the syringe, needle pointing incriminatingly at Dean’s hip, “Is one bitch of a habit to kick. Probably better if you hadn’t.” Then he spots the handcuffs and Sam sees him putting it together, wishes he’d hurry up because he really needs to breathe. Any time now.

 

Crowley lowers his hand as though Sam had begged out loud and Sam drags in a blessed breath of air.

 

“But you didn’t, did you Squirrel?” Crowley looks amused, and perhaps more worryingly, impressed. “Moose did it for you.” It’s not a question. “I probably don’t need to be here at all because you’re doing a fine job of corrupting each other. I just miss you, you know? Hell’s so boring at this time of year. And you angst so prettily.”

 

Sam tries again but this time Crowley holds up both hands. Dean doesn’t look panicked but he’s not talking either.

 

“I’ll see _you_ later,” Crowley says to Dean. He nods at Sam. “Moose.” A finger-snap, and then they’re alone.

 

“Dean?” Sam makes an aborted move towards his brother but Dean snaps his eyes back to black and it halts Sam as surely as a slap to the face. Dean’s expression is utterly blank. There’s no humanity, no regret, nothing for Sam to read. Dean turns his back on Sam and walks away.

 

But Sam already has what he needs: the knowledge of how to fix Dean, at least temporarily, and it’s exactly what he had hoped for. His blood had worked on Dean just like it had worked on Crowley and Sam is going to clean up the demonic oil-slick contaminating his brother.

 

Sam goes back to his research, set with enough grim determination for all four horsemen.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sam has had enough of Demon!Dean and has decided to cure him, and since Demon!Dean doesn’t want to be cured he has to use force. This means trapping and restraining Dean and forcibly injecting him with human blood. It’s a kind of quasi rapey scene with no sex but plenty of innuendo


	2. It was the Fire

 

 

Sam dreams of tropical storms and a tanker on its side, spewing crude oil into the ocean. Blackened skeletal seabirds claw their way to freedom. Their beaks are wide but their screams are silent. When he wakes Dean is standing in his doorway.

 

The corridor is bright but Sam’s room is dark, silhouetting Dean. Sam can’t see his eyes, they could be clear, they could be black, but Dean can see him. His life is a horror movie. Dean is unearthly and silent. He’s scary in the way that that demonic kid, Damien from The Omen, was scary. He’s watching over Sam. _My Guardian Demon_ , Sam thinks.  

 

Sam bites back his fright, not wanting to give Dean the satisfaction, and he ignores the gooseflesh creeping down his arms. His eyes slide to the glowing radio-alarm which reads 02:11. “Crowley get sick of you?” His voice is rough with sleep but otherwise steady. It’s gratifying.

 

“Sweeter dreams Sammy,” Dean says quietly, his tone as unreadable as his face. He closes Sam’s door softly, and the darkness is suffocating for a moment before Sam can shake it off.

 

 

****

 

 

There’s breakfast. It’s astonishing that they can do something as normal as having breakfast together while one of them isn’t even human. Dean has made breakfast burritos and apparently demonic burritos are excellent. Dean eats like a starving man, like he always has, with salsa reddening the corners of his mouth. Sam has to remind himself that Dean is a demon now. Maybe Sam should just get onboard with the whole eternal damnation thing. If you can’t beat them, join them, right?

 

New Dean has unerringly improved timing. It could even be some kind of ESP. Sam sincerely hopes not because even the thought makes his guts twist with guilt. “There’s something up in Nebraska,” Dean says around a last swallow of scrambled egg. “Problems with the crops. Inexplicable. Sounds like our kind of something.”

 

Sam has thought about this. He’s actually surprised that it’s been so long in coming. Dean will be faster, stronger and sharper as a demon. Sam might not be able to trust him with decisions in the greyer areas of morality but he has already decided that he can still trust Dean to have his back. Or, more honestly, if Sam can’t trust Dean anymore then he’s no longer all that interested in staying safe. It’s difficult to be so honest in the harsh morning hours though, so Sam keeps it simple.

 

“Yeah, okay.”

 

“Figure we can still hunt, right?”

 

Dean’s expression is off, like it always is now. It’s a lack of sincerity maybe, or an underlying mischief or malice. Too much _leer_ directed at Sam. Sam chooses not to look for it. “We’ll see how it goes okay?” he says.

 

 

****

 

 

So they get back to hunting, of course they do. Except that this job in Nebraska isn’t a hunt so much as an exercise in weeding. Dean was right about it being their kind of thing: they’re knee deep in the weeds from Hell, literally. The things keep twining around Sam’s ankles but they wouldn’t be a serious threat unless he stood still for half an hour or so, or maybe the danger-time has shortened to fifteen minutes by now. No comfort for the unfortunate drunk, found choked and drained two days ago. Neither would it comfort the Bauer family, whose land they’re currently standing on, nor bring their little girl back. It’s a dangerous business, playing in fields in rural Nebraska. Sam already knew this. He’s seen Children of the Corn.

 

Dean immediately wanted to get a flame thrower and burn the lot. Sam wanted to contain the growth, take samples and create a specific herbicide. He had hoped that Holy Water would suffice but although the plants wilted and hissed, they recovered; recovered and propagated. The government aren’t interested because the crops are unaffected and two deaths don’t make an interesting pattern, particularly when one’s a wino and the other a drowned seven year old, even considering the suspicious lack of water.

 

Ultimately it’s the increasing strength of the hell-weeds that settles the matter. That and their apparent sentience: when the agricultural official had inspected they had behaved themselves perfectly.

 

The Bauer family don’t give a shit about this year’s crops, or much of anything anymore. The father had exchanged looks with his brother and nodded grimly at Dean’s suggestion of fire and destruction but only spat lazily when they asked if he’d help. The stench of stale alcohol and old sweat had surrounded both men. The mother hadn’t emerged at all. Their future was bleak and, Sam thought, probably elsewhere.

 

Dean throws Sam a wide and manic grin by torchlight. It’s one of the most genuine expressions Sam has seen on him since the contamination, as Sam has come to think of it, blood exchange excluded.

 

The night explodes in a flood of fire that arches into the dark. There’s a faint wailing and Sam realises that the weeds are screaming as they die. It sounds like Dean is murdering a thousand baby lambs, muffled by cotton wool, and it’s creepy as fuck.

 

Dean gets sucked right into the task. He’s making patterns with the fountain of flames and his mouth hangs open a little. Sam imagines his breath coming quick and shallow with excitement. He holds the flame thrower lower, almost shooting from the hip once he has the hang of it, and thrusts it gently back and forth to cover every patch of ground. It’s so ridiculously phallic, like Dean’s pissing fire or something, that Sam wants to laugh, a feeling of mild hysteria bubbling up inside of him. Dean is completely absorbed; he has forgotten Sam entirely.

 

The freedom to watch Dean unobserved is intoxicating. Dean looks so powerful and Sam is getting hard in his jeans, despite the demon oil in his brother; despite the screams of the dying hell-weeds. Dean is sinfully powerful and sinfully hot. Sam wants that power to be used on him. He wants that power to be _turned_ on him. Right now, when he has none of it, Sam wants to burn under all of Dean’s attention.

 

Fuck. Sam is getting so fucking turned on. He palms himself in the dark, feeling safe under the blanket of night. It’s too dark for Dean to see, and Dean is gone anyway, riding the high of the pyromaniac.

 

And _fuck_. Dean has a hand on himself. No joke. The flame thrower is tucked under one arm and the other… the other hand is shoved into his jeans. Sam thrills all over and his brain tries to short out. He can’t believe what he’s seeing. Dean has always been an opportunist but this, _this,_ is new, and Sam is rapt. He feels slightly crazy with exhilaration and soon it’s going to be too much. The stench of burning invades his sinuses and his eyes start to water, and then Dean turns and looks right at him and _fuck_. Sam bites his lips together and comes, doubling over as pleasure rockets through him, nothing he could have done to prevent it.

 

The flame thrower shuts off and Sam is left blind, reeling in the wake of his orgasm, afterimages of fire and Dean lingering in the dark. The reek of gasoline and burning vegetation is overwhelming and the knowledge of his demon brother somewhere close by makes him fumble with his torch in a panic. He has to find Dean, _see_ him.

 

Dean has turned to face him and he’s smirking. They’re not close enough for Sam to be able to read it from his expression but he’s certain that Dean knows what just happened.

 

And then there’s the sound of tearing denim and Sam shouts, “Fuck!” his knife quick to hand, falling back on his training and deeply ingrained responses. He hacks at the stems that are creeping up his lower legs and shredding his jeans. When he looks back, Dean has walked off to the next section of field, flame thrower slung over his shoulder like a badass pirate with a sawn-off. There’s a faint tune on the breeze, creepy out here with only the stars for company. It’s Dean whistling The Beatles, Come Together. It pisses Sam off.

 

Sam keeps a more marked distance between them for the rest of the burning. If Dean calls him on it, and this new demonic Dean might, he’ll deny everything and claim smoke-induced breathing difficulties. He imagines the tiny hairs in his nostrils scorching and blackening. Somebody needs to read the Latin blessing when it’s done, and somebody needs to make sure Dean doesn’t set himself on fire. It doesn’t even cross Sam’s mind to ask for a turn with the flame thrower. 

 

 

****

 

 

In the bunker Sam is loathe to give an inch, lest Dean take a mile. It has to do with defending his hard won territory and status as an adult, independent from Dean’s all-encompassing big brother attitude.

 

It’s different, easy somehow, to plead with Dean in a motel room. There’s something liberating about being on the road, something that makes Sam feel okay with playing up the little brother act in order to get his way, maybe because they can drive away and leave it all behind in the morning.

 

“No Sam.”

 

Sam has noticed a few things about Dean’s new nature. At first he had thought that the mockery and callous flirting were designed to rile him, the demonic version of pigtail pulling, and that Dean delighted in his anger. On closer observation however, Sam has noticed Dean studying him surreptitiously _after_ the anger has fizzled away. The more he watches Dean, the more certain Sam has become that Dean is drawn to his suffering.

 

It seems to be a new fascination with emotional pain, the more intense the better, and not so far removed from Dean’s fascination with fire. He imagines that Dean must be walking a fine line, the temptation of provoking Sam on the one hand, offset by the need to keep Sam by his side.

 

“You can’t just accept this Dean. We’ve spent our whole lives hunting demons,” Sam insists, and it’s true. Sam’s body got a three year reprieve but his spirit was still out there riding shotgun and hunting with his brother. “This whole _thing_ is because of a fucking demon. You can’t just choose to _be_ one.”

 

“I said no.” Dean’s tone is the fierce end-of-discussion don’t-you-dare-argue voice that expects to be obeyed. It’s slightly wrong though, a good imitation of sincerity rather than the genuine article.

 

There could have been various explanations for Dean’s new fascination with Sam’s misery, the obvious being that _demons do evil things_. But Sam has been watching Dean carefully and come to the conclusion that Dean wants the pain for himself. Maybe demons _can’t_ suffer, like some kind of emotional impotence. It would explain Crowley’s addiction and lingering interest. Sam thinks that Dean wants to suffer. That he _misses it_.

 

“I know it hurts,” Sam says, nothing but sympathy on his face, watching Dean closely, “But it’s got to be worth it.”

 

Yeah. Dean wants that feeling again, Sam can see it.

 

“Cain was isolated and _alone_ , Dean.” This is Sam’s trump card and he mentally crosses his fingers. “If we keep you topped up, partially human at least, this could keep us together.” _In this world and the next_ , Sam mentally adds, and maybe Dean’s hearing him anyway.

 

Dean’s says, “So go find another vet,” with a nasty sneer but Sam knows that he’s won. The jibe stings but Sam feels reassured by its predictability.

 

Dean watches while Sam extracts his blood. There’s nothing in his face or body language that speaks of discomfort but Sam can sense unease coming off him in spades. It’s like Dean is humming at a frequency audible only to Sam. When he was human Dean’s pitch was A, the guiding note by which Sam tunes himself. Sam has always had perfect pitch where his brother is concerned but this new _corruption_ has Dean off-key, more like A _b_ buzzing and humming in Sam’s skull, all wrong and driving him slowly mad.

 

“Can you…” Sam purses his lips. He’s not sure how to ask or what demons do to make their eyes go black.

 

“What?” God. This version of Dean is so ruthless.

 

“Can you let the demon through? Let me see your eyes? See what happens?”

 

Dean just snaps his eyes to black in reply and Sam has to look away because he hadn’t meant yet. He hadn’t been ready. He concentrates on getting his belt free for use as a tourniquet and knows Dean’s doing that grinning leer again; refuses to look. The eyes creep him the fuck out.

 

They use a vein in Dean’s left arm. Dean doesn’t fight but he doesn’t help either. Sam feels the echo of restlessness again and he thinks that Dean is tamping down the urge to flee. This time, when the plunger sinks in, Sam has his eyes fixed on Dean’s. He actually sees the black shrink rapidly, almost too fast to be sure, inwards, as though it really is oil draining into the sinkholes of Dean’s pupils.

 

And there he is again, _Sam’s_ Dean, beautiful and human-looking, wearing the same expression of loss that makes Sam’s heart want to break for him all over again. Suddenly they’re too close. Sam shifts away, busying himself with clearing up.

 

“Sam?”

 

Sam can read so much in that tone. He can hear the apology and self loathing. He can hear pain. Sam isn’t interested in apologies. He tells himself that Dean wanted the pain.

 

“Does it feel any different from last time?” Sam chances a glance at Dean and it’s a mistake because all he can think about is that Dean knows what happened in the field. Somehow Dean got wise to Sam’s perverted affections when he woke up with oil in his eyes and just because now he’s human and hurting, he hasn’t forgotten. This human Dean isn’t supposed to see Sam’s corruption. Sam _can’t_. He looks away.

 

“It’s the same.” Dean says to his back. “It’s… intense,” he sounds as though he wants to elaborate but he’s never been one to expound on emotional experiences. “It’s the same,” he repeats, and he might sound slightly choked but only to somebody who knew him really well.

 

 _It was the fire_ , Sam wants to tell him. _It was because of how you looked with the fire_. He wants to make Dean believe that he’s not beyond redemption, that he doesn’t think of sex every time he looks at his own brother. It’s a damned lie though and they both know it.

 

Sam takes the coward’s way out, moving around Dean in the motel room in shared silence. It’s awkward and he escapes to the bathroom for much longer than necessary when it’s his turn. Dean is in bed when he comes out, lying awake in the dark. Sam wonders what he’s feeling and whether the human suffering is everything he hoped for. He wonders how long it will last without Crowley’s interference.

 

“Night Sammy,” Dean says.

 

“Night,” Sam whispers, turning away, the mandatory gap between beds separating him from everything he wants in the whole world.

 

 


	3. Touch and Press

 

 

 

Dean backs off for a few days after Nebraska. It’s hard to tell whether he’s still seeing Crowley but Sam thinks maybe not.

 

The next hunt comes to them, which has Sam wrong-footed because the bunker is supposed to be secret. Their very existence is supposed to be secret, so when two hunters corner him at their closest grocery store, Sam is both worried and impressed. At first he can’t believe that Zara and Theo Jacobi are neither angel nor demon and it takes a lot of shallow cutting with various metals and testing with holy water, and various other substances that Sam just happens to be carrying in the Impala’s trunk, before he gives them a chance to talk.

  

It’s the usual story: their world was destroyed and they took up arms, with nothing else left to do and a burning drive for vengeance. It has been almost twenty years and they’re seasoned hunters, sharp and prickly in their dealings with strangers, even as they try to make nice with Sam. They’re scarred, mentally and physically, that much is clear, but they’re impressively _alive_ nevertheless. The details of their personal supernatural apocalypse are guarded and Sam doesn’t push. Their business is unfinished, if he’s any judge. It’s still driving them.

 

Sam tells them no, straight off. He and Dean work alone ( _alone-together,_ Sam thinks) and Zara looks ratified and about ready to leave. Theo is insistent though. He’s heard stories about them maybe. Since Sam doesn’t want to draw any more attention in the parking lot they go to a nearby bar, which is incongruously bright and airy for the nature of their business. Hopefully the stories Zara and Theo have heard don’t involve Dean and the Mark of Cain because there’s a chance that this is a ruse and that Zara and Theo are actually _hunting Dean_. The thought makes Sam reach subtly for the weight of his Taurus under the table.

 

If it’s a ruse then it’s a good one. Theo begins but Zara soon takes over talking, clearly more adept. The woman herself is small and… well, wholly unremarkable if Sam’s honest, which he’s sure is intentional. Zara’s voice, however, has its own presence. It’s deep for a woman, laced with too many cigarettes and late nights. Sam listens to the lilt and soothe of the Midwest. It’s as though she has condensed the essence of the land itself and is channelling it in her voice.

 

Sam hears the story she’s telling: Frozen fish flapping back to life in the supermarket; taxidermy projects animating and escaping; slaughterhouse carcasses that won’t stay down; and finally the empty morgue drawers and the barren graves. And Sam hears other stories underneath: love and loss, joy and pain; a thousand lives under-played in the merciless spotlight of the sun. She uses the same easy allegories that Bobby would have used and Sam finds himself considering their request for help, made stupid by nostalgia. He never wants her to stop talking; never wants the spell to end. He misses Bobby. He misses the endless skies of their youth. He misses his brother like a physical ache. Dean should be wondering where Sam is by now. He should be worrying about his car.

 

The hand on his shoulder is firm and proprietary. It has been so long since Sam has been touched this way by another human being that sweet pleasure spreads from the touch and shivers run across his neck and down his arms. His body knows that it’s Dean before his mind can catch up.

 

“What am I missing?” Dean’s tone is neutral. He omits Sam’s name from the question because he doesn’t know who these strangers are and whether they’re using real names yet. The pad of his thumb rests against the bare skin of Sam’s neck and it’s not moving.

 

Sam shrugs him off and makes introductions. He wonders how Dean got here without the car. He tries to shrug off the niggling superstitious feeling that he somehow summoned Dean by wishing for him, kind of like praying to Cas. He hopes that Zara and Theo aren’t thorough enough to test Dean with salt and holy water.

 

Theo recaps for Dean’s benefit, insisting that there’s no Hoodoo involved and no witches to be found, but Sam’s not really concentrating anymore. The hollow feeling won’t leave his chest, the spell of Zara’s voice lingering, and Sam feels skittish after the smallest touch of his brother’s skin.

 

To the casual observer Dean is a picture of stony faced patience, listening but reserving judgement until he can tell the other hunters, _Sorry but you’re on your own._ Sam has never been a casual observer of Dean though, and when Dean’s hand slides over Sam’s under the table, Sam sees Dean’s eyelids dip in pleasure, almost imperceptible.

 

Sam doesn’t react except for the skip-trip of his heart, silently grateful, once again, for his training. What the fuck does Dean think he’s doing? It shocks him out of his reverie, fills the hollow feeling with… anticipation? Sam doesn’t want to examine it too closely. Dean deflates ever so slightly. What the hell? Is Sam’s hand disappointing? Was he supposed to turn his hand over and _hold hands_ with Dean? Dean is fucking with him again, he has to be, but it doesn’t explain his disappointed look. Maybe he was expecting Sam to physically flinch?

 

Sam feels disproportionately hurt as Dean’s hand slips away. Calluses scratching delicately across Sam’s skin, marking him with tiny indelible lines that he will be feeling for the rest of the day. He stands suddenly, cutting Theo off and surprising everyone, himself included. They all look at him expectantly and he clumsily accepts the case just to get out of there, with an amused look from Dean. They exchange phone numbers, which takes way too long, and promise a strategy meeting on neutral ground tomorrow.

 

Sam’s done for the day. _Everything_ can wait until tomorrow, except for grocery shopping, lazy microwave food and a long hot shower.

 

 

****

 

 

The case has drawn all kinds of interest, including real FBI interest this time. There’s also some minor journalist interest, although the world beyond this nowhere town isn’t taking it seriously so far. Sam and Dean play concerned relatives from out of town. They’re not so far out of the ordinary for a place like this.

 

There’s a run-in with a not-so-recently deceased corpse in a small woodland area behind the town’s middle school, and the Jacobis are proved right: the dead things in this town just won’t stay down, even when they’re in many pieces. It’s pretty gross but also par for the course in their line of work and no serious threat.

 

It’s Sam who sets them on the right track with his research skills. Dean says, “Nice work Sherlock,” with a wink and a leer, and Sam mentally berates himself for the flush of pride he always feels.

 

The stone tablet is wrapped in raw silk and stashed under the floorboards in the home of one Mr Cecilio, amateur linguist and collector, who is nowhere to be found. There’s some discussion about finding the guy, Zara is particularly keen to show him the error of his ways, but they reach the consensus that he has been raising the dead by mistake. He has also accidentally been calling on Anubis, Ancient Egyptian God of the Dead, a summoning that has increased in strength with every reading of the inscription, so there’s a good chance that Mr Cecilio has already paid the ultimate price.

 

They smash the tablet (they let Theo do it) and find a river to scatter the pieces. After that it’s a simple matter of touring the town to make sure that things are back to normal. Sam notices Theo noticing Dean. It’s not unusual: Dean attracts attention, the sea is deep and water is wet. Something about it is off though and it’s starting to make Sam uncomfortable. He’s pretty sure that Zara and Theo are a married couple, although nobody asked, and he’s never been the best judge but he doesn’t think that Theo’s into guys.

 

Worry grows inside Sam that Dean has accidentally revealed his nature, and it’s an instinct that he’s not willing to ignore. So he says that he and Dean will clean up, _alone_. He’s prepared to be aggressive about it but the other hunters are experienced enough to know when to back off. The goodbyes are perfunctory and Sam watches them drive away, their big red SUV kicking up dust.

 

****

The only serious news corporation journalist in town is… pretty. She’s also the final piece of _cleaning up_ that they need to do before leaving town tomorrow.

 

It’s in Katie Smart’s best interests to forget all about what she saw, really. If she tries to push the story then she’s going to be dismissed as kookie and it won’t help her career any. It may even draw the interest of other supernatural things and put her in danger. Unfortunately, she has some photographs of them in the woods, being too smart for her own good but not smart enough to hide from four seasoned hunters. Clearing up involves destroying the photos before she can upload them, which hopefully she hasn’t already done. It seems unlikely, since she hasn’t been back to her hotel and the device she used seems to be a camera rather than a phone.

 

They follow her to her hotel, where she parks herself in the bar, and Dean moves in. Which is great. Really, it’s probably the best course of action. Definitely a good thing. It’s either this or pick her pocket, or mug her on her way to her room. Dean can distract her and make her forget all about the photos. It’s best for everyone. Sam keeps telling himself this.

 

Sam follows them up to the room, keeping out of sight. He’s not close enough to catch their conversation, although he can easily imagine what Dean is saying. Katie’s smitten: Dean’s a real-live Buffy character to her; a nice normal guy who just happens to hunt evil things at the weekend for kicks.

 

Sam picks the lock on the empty adjoining room, feeling guilty and ignoring it. He silently eases open his half of the dual doors separating rooms. With only one door in the way he can hear Dean and Katie, the soft noises of kissing and huffed laughter. He imagines Dean undressing her, unzipping her dress and unhooking her bra, smooth like the male lead in a romance movie, and he thinks about Dean’s hand on his shoulder. He puts his own thumb against his neck.

 

The gentle laughter gradually gives way to gasps and moans. Dean’s voice is like honey, telling her how good she is, how pretty, over and over. He’s taking it slow, making her feel _real good_ , _real slow_. Sam hates her but he knows what Dean’s doing. He’s making her fall a little bit in love, getting her under the influence so that it’s easier to persuade her to secrecy. Katie’s going to overlook the disappearance of her photographic evidence. She’s going to remember this as a great adventure and she’s not going to want to share it with anyone else. Sam still hates her.

 

He wants to surrender to his own arousal. He wants to get his cock out right here and jerk off against the wood of the flimsy door to the soft sounds of sex in the next room. He wants to close his eyes and let Dean’s voice wash over him and imagine that Dean is saying those things to _him_ , but he can’t. It’s mostly an act on Dean’s part anyway. Instead, Sam slips out of the hotel and takes the Impala. Dean can find his own way back when he’s done.

 

On the way back to the motel Sam drives past the carcass of an enormous cow, headless and skinless, just lying there in the road.

 

 

****

 

 

“Remember that girl in San Antonio?” Dean asks, “Kiki? Kookie?”

 

They’re cruising at just over fifty miles an hour, the early morning sun on Sam’s side, nowhere in mind except home. Sam’s never going to stop being grateful for the bunker. “Kili,” he says. “Of course I remember her.”

 

“’Course you do,” Dean echoes and Sam knows they’re both thinking the same thing: that there haven’t been that many girls for Sam, discounting his soulless year, which he prefers to do, and that he _always_ remembers them. Unlike a certain older brother who was downright demonic in his sex life _before_ becoming an actual demon. Sam wonders briefly whether it’s all preordained.

 

Kili had been really pretty by high school standards, like off the scale pretty. For reasons that still mystified him all these years later, she had also been totally into Sam.

 

“Even I remember Kili,” Dean says, smirking at the blacktop ahead.

 

“’Course you do,” Sam says. He isn’t sure where Dean’s going with this, other than that he’s going _somewhere_.

 

Sex with Kili just hadn’t done anything for Sam, and he had tried really hard. At the time he had thought that there was something wrong with him, that he was broken in some way, and dark twisted fantasies involving his _brother_ hadn’t helped at all. Now that Sam knows himself better he understands that the sex was unsatisfying without any emotional attachment. He’s fundamentally different from Dean in that he needs a real connection with his partners, hence the low numbers. Dean doesn’t seem to need anything other than a hot body, _unless_ …

 

“It was pretty boring really.” Sam watches Dean’s face for confirmation as he speaks. “I didn’t have a problem getting it up or anything because, y’know, I was sixteen and she was hot,” a _nd because imagining you while I’m having sex with strangers is a failsafe I’ve been using ever since_ , Sam thinks but doesn’t add.

 

Dean nods slowly, eyes still fixed ahead. So Katie had been boring had she? Maybe hankering after emotional torment is going to cure Dean of promiscuity, in his new-found demonhood. Sam snorts at the idea. Dean scowls.

 

“She sounded pretty good though,” Dean says, eyes sliding sly to Sam and then snapping to black like a punch line.

 

Sam looks away, humiliated. _She_ hadn’t sounded good. _Dean_ had sounded good. It’s confirmation of Dean’s new super-senses. He’s still not sure whether they extend to ESP or he’s just paranoid. _It’s not paranoia if your brother really_ is _a demon_ , he thinks, with a note of mild hysteria.

 

They drive on. Towns pass. Then a state line passes and it must be nearly time for breakfast.

 

Sam loathes the demon oil in Dean for many reasons: the eternal damnation of Dean’s soul, for example, not to mention this new timeshare arrangement he’s got going on with Crowley, of all things un-Godly. The one reason that stands out though, the one thing that makes Sam want to bawl like a three year old, is the way Dean suddenly knows about Sam’s incestuous longings, and _uses it to belittle him_. It’s like the end of the world. Again. He wants his brother back, whole, human and un-damned; would do anything to cure Dean, to lead him home safely to Sam.

 

To his horror, Sam feels his frustration trying to take the form of tears, and that just can’t be allowed to happen. He fights it hard, clenching his jaw, mentally grasping for some other train of thought, but the only thing that will come is the thought that _he’s wrong_ and now _Dean’s wrong_ and things may never be right again.

 

Dean reaches out slowly, giving Sam the chance to stop him this time. Sam doesn’t. He’s paralysed; feels choked. Fingertips brush the bare skin of his face, pause and then fall away.

 

“Had a little something…” Dean gestures in Sam’s direction, eyes back on the road. And that’s just a barefaced lie. It’s like Dean could _smell_ his inner turmoil. It’s like he wanted to take it for himself, right off Sam’s skin.

 

“Don’t fucking do that!” Sam snaps, feeling cornered and unsure.

 

Dean holds both hands up for a moment, car free-wheeling, in a gesture that says, _What did I do?_ It actually helps, directing Sam’s thoughts away from incest and towards fratricide.

 

“I’m hungry,” Sam grumps, aware that he sounds childish. “Can we please stop for breakfast?”

 

“Next place we see,” Dean says, smirk firmly in place. “Whatever it takes for you to lighten up man.”

 

Sam hates him right now.

 

“Hey Sammy, maybe when we get home I can give you a nice relaxing massage,” Dean says, full out leering at Sam. And that’s _it_. Sam is fuming.

 

“When we get back I’m giving you some more of my blood,” Sam hisses. “You’re barely fucking _tolerable_.”

 

“Whatever it takes,” Dean says, settling back into the driver’s seat with infuriating satisfaction.

 

It takes Sam another ten miles to fully appreciate and admire Dean’s expertise in manipulation.

 

 


	4. Punch a Higher Floor

 

 

When they arrive at the bunker Sam wants lunch and some quiet time to document the case. ‘The Beseeching of Anubis’ tablet had arrived in the US via Israel and, so far as Sam could tell, there was no modern record of its existence. If one such tablet had recently been unearthed then it was possible that others would follow; tablets for other deities perhaps. The Beseeching of Osiris would be an interesting one, maybe raising an army of ghosts or something and summoning the God of Resurrection himself.

 

The Beseeching of Set would be another interesting one. He was the God of Lower Egypt and the desert lands. Sam can imagine sentient sandstorms with giant angry faces of billowing sand, like in that cheesy movie, The Mummy. Both together would be _awesome_ (in a purely academic sense, of course, where nobody really got hurt). Set, like Cain, had murdered Osiris, his brother, although unlike Cain, Set was the younger brother. They would fight an epic battle of skeletal warriors and raging sands, both having bottled-up a good deal of rage over the millennia.

 

Sam really hopes that he can prevent his own brother from going full-on evil so that he is never morally obliged to stop him.

 

Both Osiris and Set married their sisters in the fine tradition of regal Ancient Egyptian incest … _aaaand_ their children had the heads of a jackal and a falcon respectively, which kind of figures. Set also managed to father a child (the Moon) with his nephew and arch enemy, the jackal-headed Horus. It’s fascinating stuff. Dean would say that it’s a fine example of Sam getting his geek on.

 

Before Sam can cloister himself in the world of the bookish and the bizarre however, before Sam can even _get lunch_ , Dean is hovering expectantly at his side.

 

Sam sighs. He feels guilty for wanting to ditch Dean and Demon Theory in favour of Ancient Egyptian Sorcery, even temporarily. He knows that the thesis he’s building in his mind about modern day religious factions and the parallels with the cults of various Ancient Egyptian deities will never happen, which is a shame. It would have been a good thesis, acceptable even in the normal world of academia as a philosophical exercise, before outlining the practical applications of sorcery and Words of Power. These additions would have made it acceptable to a markedly smaller audience, and yet made it infinitely more useful.

 

“Let’s get it over with then,” Dean says, and Sam knew that the blood would be addictive but he’s surprised by how quickly Dean is hooked.

 

 

****

 

 

Dean starts to get antsy and surly only one day after his latest hit of blood. Sam considers offering but decides that Dean will have to ask this time. He gives Dean no openings for further manipulation, shutting himself away and focussing on haematology and demonology.

 

Sam has decided to think of the demon oil as just that: a kind of sentient oil with its claws in Dean. Humanity doesn’t seem to mix with this oil, pushing it back temporarily until Dean’s body can metabolise it, from rainbows and unicorns, or whatever Dean’s idea of Sam’s humanity was, into the oily blackness of hate.

 

Sam theorises on methods of separation. If humanity is water, and he can get enough of it back into Dean to sustain him, maybe the demon oil can be extracted.

 

Oil can be made to sink below water if it's heated until it's denser. Sam toys with this idea. He likes the romance of it, the thought that his love can heat Dean’s blood sufficiently to make the oil sink away, revealing human eyes and human longing, all for Sam.

 

Of course, sunken oil cools and resurfaces all too soon.

 

Crowley’s junkie behaviour will have to serve as their guide, much to Sam’s distaste, because it’s the only case study available. The prolonged effect of human blood on Crowley was a painful return to humanity over time, as the addiction took over. It should be possible to increase the dose and then separate the demon oil from Dean when they think he's strong enough. But how to then get rid of the oil?

 

Oil and water... science and witchcraft. Sam is deep into the realms of alchemy with uneasy emulsions of contradictions. Maybe he will stumble across the elixir of youth by accident.

 

 

****

 

 

Dean makes it two more days before breaking. He comes to Sam’s room, slams open the door without knocking and growls, “Goddamnit Sam. _Come on_.”

 

Sam has all the equipment he needs right there in his bedroom but the thought of sitting on his bed with this version of Dean, the Dean that watches Sam with a knowing sneer, makes him nervous. He tries to get by, hoping that Dean will follow him into neutral territory, but Dean blocks the doorway.

 

"Right here's fine."

 

"Easier out there," Sam says, nodding at the corridor and freedom, but Dean's not budging.

 

"Whassa-matter Sammy?" Dean taunts, "Am I making you _uncomfortable_?" His eyes stray down Sam's body to his crotch, where they linger, and when his focus is returned to Sam's face there's hot challenge written all over it.

 

Sam hates his body for responding. He badly wants a reprieve from Dean's presence before they do this, the room starting to feel like a cage, but apparently his animal brain can't back away from the challenge because his mouth forms the words, "Fine, whatever," and then there's no choice.

 

Dean is tense, despite the mockery, despite the bravado, apprehensive of what's to come, _scared_ but itching for it anyway.

 

Sam maybe binds Dean’s upper arm a little tighter than is strictly necessary, overcompensating for his insecurities. What he really wants to do is to get his long fingers around Dean’s biceps or smoosh his face down beneath them. So many nights have seen Sam lying awake, staring at his brothers arms in dim light and wishing they were wrapped around him. Dean’s arms are symbolic of many things: Dean’s masculinity and Sam’s home. The tops show sun damage and scars: evidence that they’re damn near indestructible, having survived this long. The undersides are pinker, softer, and they siren-call to Sam, just as always.

 

He can feel Dean’s heavy lidded eyes watching as he extracts his own blood but he doesn’t look. Sam’s trying to be objective about the process, he really is, but the fact remains that this _is_ an intimate act and his body recognises it as just that. Dean’s forearm feels so good in his hand.

 

There's no visible change other than his minute slump in posture but Sam feels Dean's shift in key like dischordant anxiety rectifying. _Glissando,_ he thinks, as the plunger slides home, and it’s bliss.

 

He releases the binding on Dean’s arm and Dean falls onto his back with a soft moan. “Sam,” he says, neither question nor request. His presence feels different, like sunshine in the room, and Sam smiles.

 

“C’mere Sammy,” Dean says. There are tears leaking from the corners of his eyes, just two, almost symmetrical except that one is getting a head start into Dean’s hair. He isn’t distressed though, just lying still as though moving would interfere with the experience, or as though he’s physically weighted down by its magnitude.

 

Sam’s not sure. Since that first hug he hasn’t really been able to look his human brother in the eye, too ashamed of his lust and being found out. He wants badly to lie close, pressed up together, but it’s not exactly something they do, so he settles for lying on his own back, close but out of reach. They both study the cracked ceiling.

 

“We should have broken into Katie’s room,” Dean says after a while.

 

Sam’s not sure what to say: this is wobbly ground.

 

“It’s not… I wouldn’t have done that if I was human,” Dean says.

 

There’s another hefty pause while Sam desperately tries to think of the correct response. “Um,” he says, intelligently.

 

“Or you could have done it,” Dean says, ignoring him. “You know? _Done her_.”

 

“No man,” Sam says, without thinking it through. “I…” _I what? Only want to do you? Would have preferred to watch you ‘do her’? Want you to do me?_ “…I’d’ve just stolen the camera,” he finishes lamely.

 

“I mean,” and here Dean takes a deep breath, “What I’m saying… is that… _anyone_ lucky enough to have your attention would be an idiot to ignore it.” Dean sounds raw, like the words are painful, torn from him like healthy teeth.

 

Sam can almost feel the heat coming off Dean’s cheeks from where he is. He has never studied a ceiling so hard in his life. What was that? Is Dean telling him that it’s okay? That Sam’s own version of corruption and incestuous lusting is _okay_?

 

“Sam?”

 

This time it’s definitely a question, so Sam braces himself, “Yeah?”

 

“Is this blood transfer thing gonna bleed you dry?”

 

They both know a lot about blood loss: it’s an occupational hazard. Sam has been giving Dean a 20ml syringe of his blood, which is fine the few times they’ve done it, but if he needs to do it every day then it’s quickly going to take its toll and make him anaemic, at least until his body can get used to it and begin to compensate. And what if Dean’s appetite increases like every other junkie on the planet? Sam’s hoping for it. Hell, Sam’s counting on it, so Dean has a valid point. For now Sam will stock up on liver and fill the kitchen with red meat. Dean won’t complain. Maybe he’ll get some EPOs to increase his production and they’ll worry about the increasing demand when they come to it. “I’ll think of something,” he says.

 

“Always were the smart one.”

 

Sam eventually falls asleep, right there next to Dean. He can’t think of anywhere else he’d rather be.

 

As he drifts off he’s aware that this temporary sanctity will be gone when he wakes, that Dean will be gone, but he doesn’t feel too bad about it. Sam’s humanity will burn away and be re-forged into demon oil. Dean’s eyes will blacken and so will his heart. Even so, being able to have the true Dean back is comforting while it lasts. The demon oil may think that it has its claws eternally hooked in Dean but it would be wrong: It’s as temporary as Sam’s soulless year; as temporary as every death they have experienced to date. It just doesn’t know it yet.

 

 

****

 

 

Dean? Dean is gone. Probably with Crowley but Sam doesn’t care. That’s all over just as soon as Sam fixes him. And Sam _will_ fix him.

 

Sam snorts, Dean and Crowley could be holding a _Love Junkies Anonymous_ meeting. The idea is inordinately amusing. Essentially that’s what they are, love junkies. Sam doesn’t believe for a second that Crowley kicked the habit.

 

Sam? Sam is drunk. He’s listening to a Prince music marathon, blasting albums that he hasn’t listened to for ten years or more on the stereo system they installed in the bunker’s living area. Dean would never allow this music to be played in his Baby, and possibly not within his earshot, but Dean’s not here and so Sam can do whatever he wants.

 

Sam thinks back to his summer of Prince. It had been the summer of 2000, when nobody was sure what to call the new decade yet. It was back when Dean had only ever called him Sammy (and it never occurred to him to mind). It was before the 9/11 attacks, before Wikipedia, when Sam couldn’t wait to earn his spurs as an autonomous hunter and every day had started, ended and been filled by Dean.

That was the summer they had begun in the outskirts of Austin, and actually stayed long enough for Sam to go to prom. The Texan sun had been blistering but many of Sam’s friends had owned pools and they hadn’t minded Dean tagging along. Dad and Caleb had taken on a pack of werewolves that summer, opting to leave Sam and Dean to their own devices: their choice of pools by day and parties by night. Dean had probably worked his way through every cheerleader in town.

 

And why hasn’t Sam listened to this music since? So much has changed, and yet so much has stayed the same. Their pools have been overrun by angels and their parties gate-crashed by demons but Sam’s life is still all about Dean. His whole life.

 

He remembers Dean at twenty one, all leather and gun oil and sex. He thinks of Dean at thirty five, all denim and demon oil and sex.

 

There’s a crazy energy thrumming through Sam. He wants to laugh and spin or shout and fight. He feels like playing practical jokes, maybe spiking Dean’s whisky with chilli, and singing at the top of his voice. Ten years ago Sam would have danced but recent experiences with unseen beings, lurking angels and ghosts in particular, have cured him of the compulsion.

 

When the album ends he changes it to Purple Rain and grins like a fool at Prince’s preacher-voice in the opening of Let’s Go Crazy. It’s so quick and easy to download albums these days. Maybe he and Dean can have some downtime one day and Sam can catch up with all the music he has loved and forgotten. Yeah. No. That’s never going to happen. The odds of Sam being able to widen Dean’s musical tastes are about the same. He tries to imagine Dean’s face if he played this album in the car and snorts unexpectedly when another spurt of goofy laughter escapes. It’s okay. He’s almost definitely alone.

 

It’s amazing that Sam’s still alive to get drunk. Really, he and Dean aren’t _human_ at all. They’re _super human_. They’ve taken down gods and monsters, angels and demons. They’ve walked the spirit world and saved their own more than once. They’re practically _deities_. It’s the stuff of DC Comics or holy books. The Winchester Gospels are only just begun. Sam silently toasts Chuck. They’re fucking invincible, him and Dean.

 

He’s high as a kite. The electric guitar goes wild and Sam’s insides are suddenly too big for his skin to contain. He’s going to explode and someone is going to have to scrape him off the fucking ceiling.

 

Prince screeches _Take me away!_ and it’s like a signal. Sam’s done. He leaps up, unsteady for a moment while the blood gets all the way up to his brain, and then he weaves back in the direction of his research. He’s too buzzed to sleep.

 

Sam can do anything, fucking _anything,_ with Dean by his side.

 

He’s not waiting up for Dean, he just isn’t tired. He can sleep in tomorrow.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Any and all future musical metaphors for [Linden](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Linden/pseuds/Linden) .
> 
> And if you haven’t read Linden’s Four Winters series then you haven’t *lived* :)


	5. Trigger Happy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That last chapter hated me. I've heard people say that before and now I know what they mean. 
> 
> This chapter? This chapter wrote itself :)
> 
>  
> 
> (but it's okay - I tested it with salt and holy water)

 

 

_…Dean backhands the syringe from Sam’s grasp and it skids across the stone floor. He rips the homemade tourniquet from his arm and tackles Sam. They go down easy, Dean on top, because Sam never stood a chance against this kind of strength._

_He runs the tip of the knife lightly, too lightly to cut, from Sam’s throat, shoulder, down his arm, coming to rest mid-forearm. It’s unavoidably erotic, their bodies pressed together. It sends sparks of pleasure shooting through the rest of Sam, even as he struggles. He tries to twist his head away but he can’t. There’s an invisible force holding his focus, making sure that he stares directly ahead, into the horrific blackness of Dean’s eyes._

_The gash on Sam’s forearm hurts, but less than it should. Dean brings it to his mouth, never breaking eye contact, and_ feeds _. And Sam_ remembers _. He struggles harder, gnashes his teeth at Dean in frustration, and when all else fails he begs for it. Dean pulls his mouth free, bloody and wicked, and puts it to Sam’s, and they’re kissing, except that they’re not, they’re feeding, both of them. Blood somehow flows both ways and Sam is drinking demon blood again. Power surges through him as he writhes beneath his brother. It fills up all the starving unused places inside of him, ready once again to realise his true destiny, only this time he has his consort…_

_…and the dream shifts..._

_There are two Deans fighting. Sam can always tell when Dean’s angry and Dean One is so angry that he’s going hell-for-leather beating up Dean Two. In fact, Dean One isn’t satisfied until he has blown two holes in Dean Two with a shotgun, but that seems to make him feel calmer. He steps forwards warily and Sam tenses because something feels wrong._

_Then Dean Two opens his eyes and they’re the awful black of the damned. “You can't escape me, Dean,” the demon snarls, “You're gonna die. And this? This is what you're gonna become!”_

_Sam reaches for Dean One, his human brother. He has to get between them, save Dean, bring him home…_

 

 

 

“Up and at ‘em Moose!”

 

Sam recognises the voice before he’s fully awake. Crowley. His Taurus is quick to hand so he shoots the bastard in the shoulder.

 

“Well that’s just hostile.” Crowley twists his neck from side to side, making it crunch. The bullet hole in his jacket is already fixed. “Not a morning person I take it?”

 

Sam doesn’t dignify that with a response. He prepares to fire a second time.

 

“Okay! Okay, point taken. I’ll be in the kitchen with darling Dean. Maybe a little coffee…”

 

Sam shoots him again, in the knee this time.

 

Crowley grabs his leg, grimacing. He sends a murderous glare in Sam’s direction but limps out of the room without further comment.

 

 

****

 

 

A case. From Crowley. Sam can’t believe it.

 

“Really Dean?” and the pissy whine in his voice is distasteful, even to Sam himself, but he can’t help it. “I know he’s your new best buddy but he’s telling us what to hunt now too?”

 

“Quit being a whiny bitch, Sam. I checked it out. It’s a genuine skin-walker, five deaths and shed skins to prove it. Who else is gonna stop it?”

 

“Oh right. That’s okay then.” Sam’s still pissed about finding Crowley in his bedroom. “Did it occur to you that Hell’s best salesman might have an ulterior motive?”

 

“I’m right here,” Crowley says. They both ignore him.

 

Sam thinks, _Has it really come to this?_ He says, “Fine. So we’re basically mercenaries working for Hell now. That’s fine Dean.”

 

“Good.” Crowley smirks his infuriatingly superior smirk and rubs his hands together. “Enough with the histrionics then boys? Shall we… what’s the phrase? _Hit the road_?”

 

 

****

 

 

Finding the shape-shifter is challenging but not impossible. Cornering it in the burnt-out shell of a house where it has been nesting is similarly tricky and Sam’s guts twist when he finally captures the thing wearing the skin of a five year old girl. He shuts it in an old freezer chest and sits on the lid. Dean and Crowley should catch up to him soon. Sam had barely hesitated to manhandle the child-shaped monster and he hopes that the thing will take the hint and rethink its strategy. If it thinks that Sam isn’t the kind of guy to flinch from murdering a child then it should shift to a stronger form.

 

And where the hell is Dean? Sam should just kill the thing. Reluctantly he raises the lid of the chest. He was right, the monster has shifted. Of course, now it’s Dean’s face looking back at him, Dean’s body bound by the ropes, much too tightly because they were knotted for a small child. There’s a disgusting puddle of slime lying beneath it: the remains of its last form. Its mouth is still taped shut, thankfully, because this would be much more difficult if the thing both looked and _sounded_ like Dean. It was last time.

 

“You’re not my brother,” Sam says coldly, looking right into the monsters eyes and setting his gun beneath its chin. Sam knows the difference between the monster that _looks_ like his brother and the monster that _is_ his brother.

 

“Woah! Woah! Moose, hold your fire!” It’s Crowley, hurrying towards them holding up placating hands. “Mr Shifter and I have some business to conclude first,” he says. “Please?” he adds, when Sam doesn’t move.

 

The real Dean gives him a minute nod from the doorway and so Sam walks away, disgusted, leaving the monster to Crowley’s tender ministrations. They sit on the rotting porch and Sam strains to hear but there are no sounds of torture, or conversation. There’s nothing except for the sounds of the woodland they’re in and the distant hum of traffic.

 

“What business?” Sam asks in a low voice.

 

“He helped some guy dodge his deal,” Dean says.

 

There’s a pause while they both take a moment to be impressed.

 

“It’s possible?” Sam whispers. They hadn’t been able to do it, to get Dean out of his deal, and Sam had never tried at anything so hard in his life.

 

Dean clears his throat. “Pulled the old switcheroo, fooled some demon minion of Crowley’s.”

 

“But that wouldn’t work, at least not for long,” Sam would know. His research concerning deals with demons had been _thorough_.

 

“Then the guy let an angel onboard.”

 

Ah. That explained it then. They hadn’t even known about the existence of angels, back in the desperate days when the deadline of Dean’s deal had been closing in. Given the choice Sam probably would choose to become an angelic vessel again. Probably. It would be a difficult decision. Of course, no self respecting angel would ever give up a soul for damnation. It would afford the vessel total protection while it lasted. “So what? He’s taking it out on the shifter and we’re letting him?”

 

Dean just shrugs. “Hey Sammy, wanna do the blood swap thing when we get back to the motel?”

 

 _He’s a demon now,_ Sam reminds himself, as fondness for his brother swells inside, _Don’t let yourself forget it._

 

Dean slips him a sly side-eye, almost like he heard Sam’s thoughts. “We could lie together all starry eyed afterwards. Whadya say?”

 

Sam doesn’t say anything. There are so many emotions battling for dominance that he wouldn’t have known what to say. The answer is yes, of course, and they both know it so there’s no point saying it. Dean has always tormented him; he might even see it as his older brother duty. It’s not fair that, as a demon, Dean’s _better at it_. It’s not fair that Sam can’t hide anything anymore. It makes Sam feel desperate and twisted inside.

 

Crowley emerges alone. Sam scowls and strides into the ruined house, Crowley following with an eye-roll and calling, “He accepted my offer of a special place in Hell.”

 

The shifter is gone and so is the slime of its discarded skin. Sam is uncomfortable leaving something that looked like his brother, however temporarily, defenceless in Crowley’s clutches but it’s not like he can really do anything about it.

 

 

****

 

 

Seven days later, and every other day just isn’t enough for Dean anymore. Sam is beginning to feel a little off-colour. He thinks he can see a change in Dean, though, so it’s worth every drop. Of course, it _could_ be an act. It _could_ be that Sam’s getting past the initial shock of Dean using his desires to humiliate him. He doesn’t think so though. There really does seem to be a genuine change for the better in Dean: he’s more playful and ever so slightly less evil.

 

The thought of using _other_ human blood irks Sam. Dean is his. He staked his claim thirty years ago and anyone else who ever thought that Dean could be theirs was fantastically disillusioned. The fact remains, however, that Sam is not going to be able to answer Dean’s growing demand on his own.

 

He breaks into the blood bank of the nearest hospital and steals twelve pints of A+. It’s ridiculously easy to walk the hospital corridors unchallenged, dressed in scrubs and a lab coat. He doesn’t use the door to the blood bank, opting to go through the ceiling from the men’s bathroom to avoid the CCTV cameras. Blood theft should stay with the local police but the last thing they need is to tempt Fate to take an interest again.

 

With the bags strapped around his body, Sam’s a little plumper on the way out. He makes a point of flicking back and forth through his clipboard of stolen notes but only a very keen observer would notice anything amiss, and nobody around him does more than glance in his direction. He feels like one of those poor guys strapped with dynamite beneath their clothes. _I’m a walking blood-bomb_ , Sam thinks, as he emerges into the sunshine of the parking lot where Dean is waiting, the Impala idling. _So what else is new_.

 

 

****

 

 

“I can’t explain it!” Sam has no explanation to offer. The stolen blood should have worked on Dean just the same. He’s also secretly pleased that only his blood can make the demon oil sink, and a little worried that he doesn’t have enough to give. “It worked on Crowley so I don’t see why it wouldn’t work on you.”

 

“Great. So what now genius?” Dean’s tone is snide. He’s shaken by the failure of the other blood, denied his glorious flood of heartbreak, and he’s trying to cover it up with snark.

 

“Maybe it’s residual magic from the Trails?” Sam says, feeling lame. It’s unlikely, given the subsequent events.

 

Dean stands. His eyes go demon black and his fists clench at his sides. “You don’t have enough blood,” he says through clenched teeth. Sam knows that Dean, demon or not, has a very tenuous grip on his temper when he’s like this.

 

“Sorry?” Sam tries.

 

Dean’s still for another moment and then he swings around and kicks the chair he had been sitting on. It sails a few feet, which is impressive, and splinters when it lands. “Motherfucker!”

 

Dean hasn’t had a violent tantrum for a long time and Sam doesn’t want to risk further damage to the furniture. “I think we should give you another hit of my blood instead,” he says, trying to put calm authority in his voice, wondering if this is how doctors feel when presented with violent children. “We can talk about it afterwards. We’ll think of something.”

 

Dean sneers at him but doesn’t disagree. Sam tries to ignore the part of him that is overjoyed at the prospect of getting his hands on Dean’s arm again.

 

It doesn’t occur to Sam that his own blood may no longer work until a moment before the needle finds Dean’s vein, but it’s only a fleeting doubt. Dean surfaces in all his human glory, falling sideways into the cradle of the couch when Sam withdraws the needle and loosens the tourniquet. There’s a look of such wonderment on his face that Sam thinks of Caravaggio’s Christ. Didn’t somebody say that Caravaggio was the anti-Christ of art? It would be fitting.

 

Sam perches on the arm of the couch so that he’s looking down at Dean. Dean’s eyes are closed, so Sam looks his fill. In making Dean an addict, Sam has made himself an addict too.

 

“Sam,” Dean says, eventually, and Sam knows what he’s thinking. Their conversations would seem sparse to the impartial observer but only because most of them are unspoken.

 

Sam’s grateful that they share the same blood group. It’s one less thing to worry about. He can’t begin to guess at Dean’s demon biology and how he metabolises the blood. The scholar in Sam pigeonholes the problem for a time when he can give a damn about anything other than fixing Dean. If it comes right down to it then Sam will give his right arm to haul Dean back to humanity. “I can probably transfuse myself,” he tells Dean.

 

“But…” Green eyes find Sam’s. _I don’t want to hurt you,_ they beg.

 

“It’s temporary.” And so ends what would once have been a five day argument, condensed into its most basic elements: a token protest and the final say, which, in this instance, is Sam’s.

 

Dean closes his eyes again and Sam looks at the soft lashes resting against the pale freckles of Dean’s skin. He remembers the dream and the compulsion to save his brother this time, where last time he failed. “Do you think there’s still some demon in me?” Sam asks quietly, after a while.

 

“Maybe.” And Dean’s honesty is raw but it’s also a show of respect for Sam, when once he might have lied. “Dude, I don’t want to be any more human than you. We’ll just be as human as each other okay?”

 

Sam closes his own eyes. “Okay,” he says.

 

 


	6. Tarantella

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sam does vomit in this chapter. It’s not a major part of the chapter or a kink thing or anything (and it kind of serves him right for spinning round too fast) so I didn’t tag it. But yeah. Thought I should mention it. Dean’s not very nice about it either, but then he _is_ still a demon.

 

 

The problem is how to extract the demon oil without murdering Dean’s soul.

 

Sam spends his evenings and much of his nights interpreting ancient texts. He follows the trail of something called _essence of evil_ and it becomes clear that essence of evil and demon oil are one and the same. There’s scant interest through the centuries, leading to two texts in particular which theorise on separation of the demon oil from a demonic soul.

 

The first is an outlandish set of instructions for the creation of demons. It originates from the Carolingian Empire and reeks of medieval witchcraft. Fortunately it has been pre-translated into Latin, for which Sam is eternally grateful to the scholars of old.

 

The other text is Bohemian and, although it is eight centuries more modern, it’s no easier to read. Part of Sam delights in the challenge though, and when he’s finally done he spends a few minutes gloating at the thing through sleep-bleary eyes. It’s an alchemy text speculating about the value of demon oil as an ingredient. A number of possible extraction techniques are considered, which is excellent, but it’s only theory. Neither text speaks of real-life application or hard evidence that the procedures would work.

 

Both texts agree on one key point: that the demon oil has some degree of sentience. It’s unlikely to have a complex agenda but its primeval instincts do extend to jealous possession of the captive soul. In short, it’s not going to want to let Dean go.

 

Sam puts his research on pause because there’s one extraction technique that’s definitely worth a try: a kind of home-remedy exorcism that Sam hasn’t come across before. It involves getting hold of a particular type of cursed object that’s common enough in their line of work. Pulling on a few old strings of Bobby’s should get them what they need.

 

 

****

 

 

The mandolin is Sicilian and old. Sam touches it warily, carefully avoiding the strings. The instrument is charming: thin patterned wood that is fragile like an old man’s papery skin. Sam extends it in his arms, offering the mandolin strings to Dean.

 

Dean hip-shifts himself away from a side-lined couch and saunters onto their makeshift dance floor. They exchange a look that is scepticism on Dean’s part and encouragement on Sam’s. “So…okay,” Dean says, and reaches out to thrum his fingers over the strings.

 

The dance begins immediately at a moderate pace, and Dean turns into it, not fighting, his feet finding the steps of their own accord. Sam watches Dean’s arms stretch out and remain wide, in the style that is also common to dancing Greek waiters and men at Bar Mitzvahs. It should be funny, Dean folk dancing, but it’s not. The steps have levity, precise turns and movements spelling out a message that Sam can’t interpret, over and over.

 

The tempo picks up and Dean keeps time, not yet fast enough for the centrifugal effect that Sam is hoping for. He looks comfortable in the dance, as though he is dancing by choice. There’s something about the confidence and deliberate movements that make him seem capable and more masculine somehow. Sam reminds himself for the thousandth time that Dean is a _demon_ , even as he helplessly admires the lines of his body

 

The tune gets gradually faster and Sam watches closely for a sign that he should begin the incantation. He hears Dean’s breath catch. Self-assurance seems to drain out of Dean as he turns more quickly. He’s starting to look more like a man caught in a curse and less like a demon. “Sam,” he barks, the green of his eyes intermittent like a pulsar, whipped away full-circle to turn on Sam again and again.

 

“ _Rumani ci sarà una timpesta e foca..._ ” Sam begins. He tries to keep his voice steady but the rhythm is infectious. His words come more rapidly, mimicking the dance.

 

Dean whirls, faster and faster but the spell has no noticeable effect. Sam presses on anyway, hoping for some sign of success, eyes trained on the distressed flashes of green.

 

“Sam… Sam!” Dean’s pitch gets higher as his feet tap-shift-stamp impossibly fast and Sam stops reading because it's not working and he can’t ignore the desperation he hears in Dean’s voice. “God, Sam,” Dean gasps, shirt darkening with sweat, “Make it _stop_.”

 

Sam eyes the mandolin. He was assured that it would only play one dance, its victims a little worse for wear but almost always alive. He could set it alight but that would definitely piss off the tentative contact he had forged with an old friend of Bobby’s.

 

Dean looks entirely human, the demon oil spun away. He's whirling like a child's spinning top. There are tears on his face and Sam is so surprised by them, and so concerned, that he reaches out.

 

The moment Sam makes contact with Dean's elbow he is caught by the curse too, forced into the frantic tarantella. Dean dances away from him at first, his feet a blur of movement, but then the dance steers them in the same direction and they grasp each other, locking hand to forearm as though one of them is falling off a cliff.

 

It takes all of their combined strength to haul themselves together and the dance fights them for every inch of progress. The whirling gets tighter, faster, until they're chest to chest, feet not moving at all. They spin as though they could generate their own current in a coil of wire, levitated half a foot above the ground at the curse’s peak.

 

Sam's eyes screw shut, Dean's arms fastening him in place. He revels in the proximity to Dean, in Dean's smell and Dean's heat, even through his panic, even as he thinks that he's going to black out.

 

The dance ends abruptly and they fall apart, Sam’s world spinning and falling. It’s a miracle that he’s still standing, staggering and doubled over, clutching at his knees.

 

A mandolin string snaps, breaking the new stillness with a _twang_. The string curls back on itself and nods at them lazily.

 

Sam is vaguely aware of Dean close by, vertical and barely effected, presumably due to demonic healing powers, which in turn means that the oil must be flooding back in already. Sam vomits. When he looks up Dean has a contemplative look that fades to apathy even as Sam watches.

 

“That pasta looked tastier the first time round,” Dean says. There’s mild disgust and amusement in his expression and absolutely no trace of tears. He’s mostly projecting boredom.

 

Sam backs away from his own mess and breathes deeply as the world slows.

 

“Maybe next time we can tango.” Dean says after a long moment. He smirks as he says it and hot interest floods through Sam, even as his stomach rolls again. “Yeah,” Dean taunts, “Reckon you’d like that.”

 

Sam has to get away, to the bathroom, but Dean follows and stands behind him, watching in the mirror while Sam rinses his mouth and splashes his face. Sam can feel Dean’s attention on him like an infrared beam and he can’t seem to rein himself in. He splashes cold water over his face and neck again but his mind keeps on reeling under that intensity, even though he’s no longer dizzy, no longer sick.

 

Dean snaps his eyes to black when Sam can no longer avoid them. He’s smirking, sending Sam another filthy look, smug and full of knowing. It's the polar opposite of innocence, and Sam tries to ignore it but he's helpless to prevent the arousal that's banking up inside him like a forest fire. He hates that slick black oil in Dean’s heart and Dean’s eyes. Hates it with everything he has and all that he is.

 

“You know what? I see _all_ of you like this Sam,” Dean says to mirror-Sam.

 

 _Fuck_. Sam wants to cover his face, wants to look away, but he stands his ground.

 

“I see it all,” Dean’s smirk widens into a predatory grin, “ _Little brother_.”

 

 

 

****

 

 

Usually, after a routine exorcism, demon oil goes back to Hell with the demonic soul onboard. In cases where a demon is killed, as with Ruby’s knife, the demonic soul is destroyed and whatever remains returns to Hell. It’s actually pretty unclear what distinguishes this absolute death from the return to Hell following an exorcism. Maybe the soul forgets? Maybe it is re-forged? Sam sets it aside as yet another interesting idea for a quieter time of study that will probably never come. He can’t afford to go off on a tangent, no matter how fascinating it may be.

 

Sam has decided to make the demon oil work with him and so he needs to think of a way of making it _want_ to let go of Dean’s soul. What he really needs is a seductive alternative.

 

Funnelling the oil off into another human might work. With the right catalyst, the lure of another soul, particularly one less tainted by sin, might clean Dean right up. But Sam won’t be turning humans to demons, not until they’re out of other options anyway, and there _will_ be other options. He’s not yet at the point where he will resort to virgin sacrifices. They only have Sam’s morals to keep them on the straight and narrow this time. They can’t both afford to go totally Dark Side.

 

The demon oil _can_ be pushed away by the heat of Sam’s blood, and Sam _will_ find a way to banish it from Dean forever. Sam will cleanse Dean’s soul with his love. They have proven, over and over again, that Sam’s blood can push the oil away and pull his brother to freedom. Sam thinks about it all the time. He clings to it in the dark of his room, hand tugging on his cock and ears pricked for the slightest sound of Dean moving around the bunker. Love is heat. Love is Sam’s blood. When he’s with Dean, love is all that Sam is.

 

 

 


	7. I Banish Ye to a Nearby Container

 

 

Sam thinks, _I’m injecting my brother with liquid love, which also happens to be my blood,_ as he sinks the plunger of the syringe with his thumb.

 

Dean’s shoulder presses into Sam’s chest and Sam’s body quivers at the possibilities. He’s acutely aware of every twitch and shift of Dean’s muscles.

 

Sam thinks, _Is this the highest point of fucked up we’ve ever reached?_

 

Dean moans, “ _Sam_ ,” as the tourniquet releases and the blood floods his system. He slides away until he’s lying with his legs across Sam’s lap. His face is a study in anguished ecstasy.

 

 _Yes._ Sam thinks. _Yes, it really is._

 

The shortage of sleep is starting to bite Sam in the ass. He’s tired, so tired that the room ticks around him when he loses focus. It’s as though Sam is the second hand in a giant clock and he’s moving backwards. He gives into it, leaning back and letting his eyes fall shut like they have lead weights attached. Dean is quiet and still. Sam swims in the red-black behind his eyelids.

 

“Let’s go to Oregon when this is over. We could just… _go_ , like a vacation or something Sam. Pick up a job when we’re there maybe. There’s always ghosts an’ witches… something.”

 

Dean’s voice is so familiar and welcome and Sam is already half in a dream. It feels like a midnight conversation from a thousand years ago: residual camaraderie from a shared childhood. Sam lets it wash over him.

 

“I think the coolest hunt we ever did was those spirit trappers in Oregon. Remember the wolf?”

 

Sam remembers. They had found the bones of the fur trappers and part of a wagon preserved in the dust at the bottom of a deep ravine, salted and burned them and headed back on the narrow path, plenty of daylight left. The wolf had stopped them in their tracks, John standing between it and his boys. Maybe the wolf had been silently thanking them. Maybe it had just been assessing them as a potential meal for its pack. Dean had circled Sam protectively, scanning for more wolves in the trees. Sam had been at an impressionable age and the memory of his father silently communicating with a wolf, hunter to hunter, is one that has stayed with him ever since. John had been reluctant to shoot, and the wolf had loped off eventually, clearing their path.

 

“Remember the cabin?” Dean’s amused tone says he’s asking more about what happened in the unremarkable little cabin than the building itself.

 

John had left them for a week, isolated but happy enough to spend a week of summer vacation. Sam had been old enough to expect the irritation/arousal/love reaction that Dean provoked in him _all the time_ , but still too young to hide it properly or focus on one emotion. John’s instructions had included, _Make sure Sammy eats his greens Dean_ , which had irritated the hell out of Sam, and Dean had taken great pleasure in pinning him, tickling him breathless and forcing peas into his mouth (and sometimes his ears or nose if he was feeling particularly mean). Sam had been defiant, humiliated and desperate to hide his body’s reactions by turn. He had been so hard so often that summer, and in retrospect Sam thinks that Dean must have known, although he couldn’t have known how Dean-specific his arousal was. Still is. No, actually, Dean knows all about that now. Sam feels his heartbeat pick up and a flush creeping up his neck. He hopes that Dean will somehow miss it if he just keeps his eyes closed.

 

“Wish you were still small enough to pin Sammy,” Dean says, and it confirms that they’re remembering the same thing, which shouldn’t really be a surprise.

 

Sam grunts in mock annoyance and concentrates on his heartbeat, slowing and calming. Dean’s legs are heavy across his lap but not close enough to Sam’s cock that he would feel it thickening and swelling. Sam ignores it. It happens inevitably, swelling and softening over and over again when they’re together like this. Sam starts to drift after a while, happy and relaxed, well on his way to sleep. Dean’s voice catches him though and pulls him towards the surface again. “You forgiven me for Gadreel yet?” it asks.

 

“No,” Sam says, not missing a beat, not bothering to open his eyes.

 

“We wouldn’t doing this if I hadn’t saved you.”

 

Sam refuses to allow the small smile that’s trying to break through onto his face. “I know,” he admits quietly. Dean as a human is still a master manipulator. Sam doesn’t want to think about being possessed and forced to commit murder. It makes him feel angry and violated. “Shut up,” he adds, mildly. It’s the last thing he really wants Dean to do but he _would_ like him to change the subject. And Dean already got what he wanted anyway, from the shadow of the smile that somehow escaped through the less obvious channels of communication. It’s not the weird demonic ESP thing that Dean may or may not have going on. It’s the synchronicity of lifelong companionship, the same thing that lets them finish each other’s sentences.

 

The truth is that Sam wouldn’t care much for humanity without Dean and he’s pretty sure it’s mutual, even if Dean’s love isn’t as twisted as his own. Perhaps they have both always been incurably human. Sam’s certain that they’re incurably inseparable. Addiction and obsession: The Winchester experience of humanity.

 

Sam falls asleep thinking that he’s hooked and woven into Dean, tighter than zipper teeth in winter.

 

 

****

 

 

Sam wakes with a start and wonders how long they’ve been lying there. Dean is shifting his legs. It seems innocent but there’s intent in the movement and Sam knows that it’s not. His cock swells to hardness, fast, always so eager for Dean. Is Dean still human? How long has it been since he had a hit of Sam’s blood? One hour? Two? Would human Dean even do this? Sam imagines the oil cooling and rising in his brother. He imagines inky black eyes and pushes Dean off, walking away as quickly and normally as possible with a huge throbbing erection.

 

He locks himself in the bathroom, braces his hand against the mirror and closes his other fast and firm around his cock. It’s such sweet relief. He looks into his own eyes and thinks about Dean. Sam frequently takes Dean apart and puts him back together in his mind, so he knows exactly how Dean works. And the devil of the thing is that normal Dean, human and horny, might, possibly, maybe, on the outskirts of all reason, _want_ to do that to Sam.

 

Lost in his pleasure-high, abandoned to the flood of release, Sam dares to think, _Maybe,_ as he comes all over the sink.

 

 

****

 

 

There’s no known way of creating or destroying the demon oil. It’s like theorising about energy or mass: it has to go somewhere.

 

They could siphon it off into another demon. Sam seriously considers this. Making a soul more demonic is still pretty dubious on the moral front but it’s better than contaminating a human. He thinks about fractional distillation and siphoning it off drip by drip, a bit into that demon, a bit into another demon. He just can’t figure out a way of enticing the demon oil to let go of Dean though. Sam can’t blame it. He’s never letting go of Dean.

 

When Sam starts to think about freezing humanity late at night he has to walk away because he thinks that the mixture of metaphors and science might finally have driven him crazy.

 

The idea doesn’t seem any more crazy in the morning though, and the more Sam works on it the more twisted sense it makes. It goes like this: Water (humanity) freezes before oil. If love is heat then maybe hate is cold. If Sam gives Dean his blood to make him temporarily human and then somehow fills him with hatred then maybe the humanity can be frozen and the demon oil can be exorcised.

 

Dean doesn’t get it, probably because Sam neglects to mention heat or love. He would rather die than try to explain to Dean why Sam’s blood is love. It sounds completely insane anyway (and possibly it is) and he’s never saying it out loud. Dean’s reaction to such a chick-flick moment is also something Sam doesn’t want to imagine, when he’s human anyway. Demon Dean would just laugh in his face.

 

“Can’t we do that other thing with sulphur?” Dean asks, stubborn as ever.

 

“Pass all of your blood through sodium sulphate and hope that the oil can’t get though?” Sam sighs. “Yes. I don’t know. Maybe. Let’s try this first, okay?”

 

Dean doesn’t like the idea of his emotions being manipulated and he puts up a fight but years of being designated researcher work in Sam’s favour and Dean reluctantly agrees to go along with it.

 

There are plenty of precedents for hatred manifesting as freezing temperatures in lore, everything from poltergeists to Lucifer in his icy cage. Sam tracks down a mild exorcism: not a banish-ye-to-Hell one but a banish-ye-to-a-nearby-container one, just in case it takes Dean’s soul with it. It's ultimately Dean’s emotions that turn the whole exercise into a total clusterfuck.

 

It’s easy to make Dean cry, freshly strung-out on Sam’s blood, just the mention of the demon that killed their parents sets him off immediately, silent tears streaming down his face. Sam hates himself for it.

 

He gets Dean to think about the arrogance of the angels instead. When that doesn’t work he tries talking about the sick human serial killers they’ve encountered. They talk about leviathans and then they try talking about demons. The latter is fresh enough to get more of a reaction but not nearly enough. Dean’s not happy about any of these things, or at peace with them or anything, but the cold rage he might once have felt just isn’t there and he remains beautifully human, trying so hard to be angry for Sam that it’s kind of sweet.

 

It’s not until Sam turns the conversation to himself that things start to get really interesting. “It’s probably best that we’re colleagues, not brothers,” Sam says, and yes, there’s the reaction he’s been waiting for. Re-visiting this particular conversation is seriously pissing Dean off.

 

“Shut up Sam,” he growls.

 

“I guess I could always go back to college and be a mature student, if this doesn’t work,” Sam says.

 

Dean purses his lips. Damn, that should have had more of an effect. Apparently Dean doesn’t believe him.

 

“Leaving for Stanford was easy enough,” he lies.

 

“Shut. Up.” Dean’s eyes flash a warning. This is territory Dean really doesn’t want to enter. Good. It means that it might actually work.

 

“You know I had a great time at college, until you showed up.” Dean stands up clenching his fists. That’s his first line of defence: escape, except that he can’t.

 

Sam needs something more. Dean’s getting angry, sure, and he’s insecure and has abandonment issues, but he knows deep down that Sam’s only saying it to make him feel hatred. Sam needs something else, something that might be true. He needs to make Dean forget about the experiment. They need to make this work.

 

A small part of Sam’s mind is screaming at him to stop. It’s the part of him that isn’t interested in research at all. It’s the part that just wants to curl up and watch Thundercats while Dean makes pancakes. _You don’t want Dean to hate you!_ it insists. Sam squashes it. They need to make this work whatever the cost.

 

“Maybe I just keep you around as eyecandy Dean,” Sam says. “Ever think about that?”

 

“Shut the fuck up Sam!” That’s Dean’s final-warning voice and Sam thinks he’s not getting out of this without a broken nose at least but he has to keep going.

 

“It’s not _brotherly_ love I want from you Dean,” he says, “You’re such a fucking whore, s’all I’ve wanted from you for ages.”

 

It sends Dean on the rampage. He roars incoherently and grabs a lamp, flinging it in Sam’s general direction, close enough to make him jump.

 

“Woah!” Sam tries, “Dean, calm down.”

 

Dean starts throwing other things, everything he can get his hands on, never at Sam directly but never far away.

 

“Stop!” Sam yells. This is all wrong Dean was supposed to go into a cold rage, not this violent temper tantrum… and even as Sam thinks it he realises that it was inevitable. This is another way to get Sam to shut up: Sam can’t hurt Dean with his words if he’s dodging blunt objects.

 

There are no more missiles to hand so Dean starts to throw furniture, upturning things he can’t lift like the table and the couch.

 

And maybe Dean can’t run away because they’re in a giant devil’s trap, but Sam can, and so he does, shutting a door between them.

 

 _It was never going to be that easy_ , Sam thinks, leaning his back against the closed door. Sam should have known. He _did_ know. It might be simple to separate out oil and water but it’s definitely not so simple to untangle Dean’s emotions. Apparently Dean is a massively repressed emotional bomb, which was actually kind of obvious. Sam feels stupid.

 

He waits for the sounds of demolition to stop, which takes a while, and when there’s finally silence he waits two more minutes before re-entering the room. Their living area has been totally destroyed. There are great gashes torn into the couch. Dean is standing in the middle of the wreckage, chest heaving, an icy rage on his face cold enough to freeze Florida. There’s no way they can implement the rest of the plan now however: Sam’s mild exorcism is in shreds and the container is in smithereens.

 

“Let me see,” Sam says, keeping a long distance between them.

 

Dean immediately snaps his eyes to black.

 

“Fuck,” Sam whispers. His instincts tell him to back away but he has to free Dean, so he swallows down his nerves and edges forwards until he can scrub out a line of chalk with his boot.

 

Then he listens to his instincts and quickly escapes to the shelter of his room.

 

 

 


	8. Spine-tinglingly Wicked

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I beat Sam into submission but Demon Dean won't be cowed. He insists on doing whatever the hell he wants, which figures :)

 

 

“ _Saaaaamy_ ,” Dean says softly from his doorway and Sam wakes instantly. He doesn’t remember the dream, which always counts as a win, but feels a lingering sense of distress from it.

 

The radio-alarm broadcasts 03:17 in merciless red. “Dean?” Sam props himself up on one elbow. Dean is doing his demonic silhouette thing in the doorway again and if it was creepy the first time then Sam is downright spooked now, after the ruination of their latest attempt. He switches on the bedside lamp and cowers at the sudden brightness, watching Dean warily through slitted eyes.

 

Dean doesn’t say anything for a moment, just stands there burning holes in Sam with his fake-human eyes. Then he stalks forwards and Sam knows that he’s in trouble.

 

“Thought you might wanna talk about it,” Dean says, voice pitched low.

 

Sam absolutely does not want to talk about it. Not in the godforsaken hours of the early morning and definitely not while Dean’s full on demonic, like he is right now. “Do you want some blood?” he offers, because maybe he can’t manipulate time but he can fix the other problem, temporarily, the demon problem, even if his body really needs to recuperate.

 

“Nah. I’m not really feeling it right now, y’know?” Dean’s presence is menacing and the weight of his scrutiny mind-breaking. There’s nastiness underlying his easy tone, mocking Sam.

 

“It’s the middle of the night?” And Sam really doesn’t mean for it to be a question but it comes out as one anyway. Dean just smirks. It doesn’t reach his eyes. He’s too close, fully dressed and looming. Sam sits up and pulls the sheets to his chest, trying not to look too much like a blushing maiden but needing the extra barrier despite the cost.

 

Dean moves forwards so that his thighs press against the edge of Sam’s bed. “Maybe,” he says slowly, leaning towards Sam, “ _Maybe_ Sam, if you’re _good_ , then we can come to some kind of _arrangement_.”

 

Sam tears his eyes away from Dean’s crotch and up to his face. This is when he needs to move, right now. This isn’t going anywhere good. And Sam _wants_ to move. He frantically tries to think of a way out, maybe a sideways barrel-roll out of the bed and onto the floor, taking a pillow with him to hide his crotch and his shame.

 

“I mean,” Dean continues, settling a knee on the bed and slowly shifting himself across to straddle Sam’s sheet-covered shins, “Since you’re already enjoying the _eyecandy_.” Dean is supporting his own weight. His movements are slow and he’s giving Sam plenty of time to get away, the bastard. “And I think we already established that I’m a _whore_.”

 

Sam is going to run, any moment now. Dean is close enough to smell and Sam aches to touch, despite himself. He tells himself that he hates this sneering monster that toys with him like a cat with prey. He wants to feel angry, or any emotion that might spur him into action but his body has other ideas, which is, of course, exactly what Dean is using against him. Sam is so hard and so ready to be touched. His mind is screaming, _Danger! Demon!_ But all Sam’s body wants to do is splay out and finally welcome Dean into his bed.

 

“Want a sample Sam?” Dean touches the first two fingers of his right hand against Sam’s bare shoulder, exerting the gentlest pressure, and Sam falls back as though his strings have been cut. “Want a little taste Sammy?” Dean teases, snaking forwards to brace himself over Sam on all fours.

 

“It’s not you!” Sam tries desperately, Dean’s mouth bare inches from his own. “You’re not you!” and Dean laughs right in his face.

 

“Is that what you’ve been telling yourself?” Dean shakes his head at Sam in a parody of fondness which is even worse than the sneering and mocking. Sam feels a fresh pang of loss. “Oh, this is me alright Sam,” Dean continues, tilting his head to the perfect angle for a kiss.

 

There’s something terribly wrong with Sam. His cock is tenting the sheets obscenely, pushing up into the fabric of Dean’s shirt but not quite brushing the firmness of Dean’s belly. Sam feels distressed: he’s shaky, trapped and hurting. He _knows_ that this is all a game to the demon thing that’s impersonating his brother and yet he can’t think straight through the fog of his arousal. It’s as though Dean has come inside the trigger proximity, within which Sam’s body takes over and runs the show. He doesn’t dare move. It’s all he can do to keep his hips against the mattress and his mouth away from those lips, which look like paradise but would end him as surely as a draught of hemlock.

 

Dean touches his fingertips to Sam’s temple for a moment and gasps in a deep breath, closing his eyes.

 

“I think what you need Sam,” Dean murmurs, wicked smirk back in place as he reaches between them instead, “Is some _brotherly love_.” He touches Sam’s cock through the sheets, rests his warm palm over the length of it and pushes it against Sam’s belly, holding him there.

 

Sam sobs once and his cock twitches and spasms under Dean’s hand trying to come. He hates Dean right now, wants to bite him and punch him and kiss him and come. Sam really wants to come.

 

Dean squeezes and strokes and Sam’s almost there. He bucks his hips up towards Dean’s body, trying for more contact, tying so hard to get there, and Dean scritches the nail of his forefinger under the head, tickling Sam’s frenulum. Sam cries out, certain of release, never so turned on in his life, and then Dean’s body lifts as he climbs off the bed and walks away.

 

Sam bites his lips together, tears running into his hair. He kicks his legs in frustration and punches the mattress. He won’t touch himself, won’t be that weak, won’t give Dean the satisfaction because Dean would _know_.

 

After an agonizing moment of suspended tension Sam’s orgasm backs off, his body not quite able to finish on its own. Sam cries until he’s soft, cries until he falls sleep.

 

 

****

 

 

Dean is nowhere to be found in the morning.

 

There’s an Oklahoma newspaper waiting for Sam in the kitchen with an article circled in red. It’s unsubtle and so typical of Dean that Sam’s heart constricts but Sam is not going to start the morning by breaking down again, and if Dean wants to go hunting then he can say so to Sam’s face. Sam flips to the front page of the paper instead and settles down to read the national headline news with his coffee.

 

On page two there’s news of an oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. It’s small in comparison with some of the modern horrors of pollution but large enough to indicate the use of expensive new techniques, one of which involves turning the oil into something called a ferrofluid. Sam forgets the coffee and opens his laptop, interest piqued.

 

Ferrofluids are fluids with magnetic nanoparticles trapped inside. The nanoparticles are attracted to oil. They’re released into the mixture and then the oil can be separated out using magnets. Another ingredient called a surfactant is needed to prevent clumping.

 

This is news to Sam. He watches the Youtube videos of freaky black goo magnetized into impossible mathematical shapes. It reminds him of the X-files, leviathan blood, if it became sentient, and the stuff in Dean’s eyes.

 

It’s going to make for long hours of research, many late nights of planning, problem solving, brainstorming and it will require knowledge from many areas of expertise. It’s going to be challenging but this could actually be the answer that they’ve been searching for.

 

Two hours later, after reading a few academic papers and checking his established reference materials, Sam is convinced that magnetizing Dean’s blood is possible and he is one hundred percent committed to making it work this time. Now, if only they had someone or something to channel the demon oil into…

 

“Sam.”

 

Just when Sam is really into it and Dean decides to drag him off on a hunt. Of course. Then Sam remembers last night. How could he have forgotten?

 

Demons don’t apologise, not sincerely anyway, but Dean is standing at the foot of the stairs with both of their bags packed and a neutral look on his face.

 

The hunt is in an Oklahoma children’s hospital. Sam doesn’t relish the coming drive but his alternative is to hide from Dean in the bunker. “Right,” Sam says to Dean’s left shoulder. “Okay.” At least Dean’s hands will be otherwise occupied while he’s driving.

 

 

****

 

 

The hunt is theoretically over, all ghouls vanquished, and they don’t usually stick around to clear up the human mess… but. But this time they’ve managed to rescue the douchiest douchebag to ever walk the face of the Earth and they’re going to have to do something with him.

 

The guy’s a moderate crime lord with a sticky trail of homicides littering his career ladder. More recently he has stolen millions of dollars from the hospital for the sole purpose, so far as Sam can deduce, of buying himself a luxury yacht. Sam is erring on the side of involving the authorities, despite the hassle of leading them through the evidence whilst trying to remain anonymous. He knows that Dean will argue for throwing him to his competitors instead.

 

“That’s not gonna fly, asshole.” Dean has his Beretta trained at Hamza’s heart and Sam can’t help but cringe away from the gunshot in the same way that he would have cringed away from a balloon that Dean was about to burst when they were kids. “We saw the footage. Unless you’ve got an evil twin we don’t know about?”

 

Hamza looks down.

 

“Didn’t think so,” Dean says and pulls the trigger.

 

The shot rings loud in the evacuated corridor and then Sam yells, “Dean! What the fuck?

 

“What?”

 

“We don’t kill civilians! Remember? _Christ._ ”

 

Dean hiccoughs loudly. He’s un-fucking-believeable. Then he grins like the monster he currently is and says, “Return of the Living Bread Sam,” looking pleased with himself.

 

“Dean!”

 

“Chill out Sam. I shot him in the shoulder. He’s alive.”

 

Sam nudges Hamza with his boot. He doesn’t look alive.

 

Dean says, “Huh.” He doesn’t look sorry. He just looks at Sam. “Musta had a weak heart or something?” he offers.

 

Sam has the feeling that he’s being humoured again. It’s quickly followed by the unwelcome conviction that Dean had fully intended to kill the asshole, and that he’s only lying about his intentions to make sure Sam doesn’t leave. He pinches the skin over his nose and tries to gather his thoughts. He wants to be mad with Dean. He should be mad but at least now there won’t be all the hassle with the police.

 

And something is stirring in his mind, cogs set in motion. Something about evil twins. He makes his way to the car. It’s not that he’s letting Dean off the hook for this, but maybe they can save the argument for later.

 

 

****

 

 

“Evil twin, evil twin,” Sam mutters to himself, looking through the newer third-shelf books in the bunker’s library, “Aha! Doppelgangers.”

 

“Tricky to find, some of those ingredients.”

 

“Jesus fuck! Crowley. Not now. Dean’s… out. Just… go away?” Sam frowns as his brain catches up. “How do you get in here anyway?”

 

“Should be more careful to whom you extend an invitation. It’s easy to leave a door ajar. Did I hear you say doppelganger?”

 

Sam narrows his eyes and clutches the book to his chest. Crowley taking an interest is bad news.

 

“I read an interesting thing the other day,” Crowley says, inspecting his nails, “About doorways to Hell exerting a pull on all things demonic.”

 

Sam doesn’t know where this is going and he wishes that he could afford not to care.

 

“Crawling out of a Hell Gate is really hard work. Do you know why Moose?”

 

Sam doesn’t know why and apparently Crowley is going to make him say so. “No,” Sam says tightly. “Why.”

 

Crowley looks triumphant. “Because Hell is like a magnet for demonic essence.”

 

Crowley’s offering to help. Sam just needs to know the price. “What do you want?” he asks, voice striving for neutrality.

 

“Not finished,” Crowley says, holding up a finger obnoxiously but Sam can still breathe. Maybe it takes a whole hand to cut off someone’s air supply. “It goes like this,” Crowley continues, “ _I_ open a doorway to Hell; _You_ create a doppelganger of Dean just inside the doorway; _Dean_ stands in front of said doorway, and the demonic essence gets transferred from Dean to the doppelganger and thus directly into Hell.”

 

Sam is quiet while he mulls it over. He feels angry with Crowley for being a necessary part of Dean’s rescue, for being a dick in general, but mostly he’s annoyed that Crowley solved Sam’s research problem for him, denying him the sense of achievement. He feels pissy, like a nerdy child who has been out-nerded.

 

A doppelganger will be an oil-free replica of Dean. The oil should want to transfer with minimal encouragement. The magnetic effect of Hell will save Sam the trouble of figuring out a way to magnetize blood.

 

“What’s to stop things escaping? If we open a doorway to Hell we’re kind of asking for trouble aren’t we?” Because Sam has seen an open Hell Gate before and it’s not an experience he wants to repeat.

 

“Use a mirror,” Crowley says. “Don’t you know anything?”

 

There’s still the question of payment. “So what do you want? What’s the deal?” Sam asks. There’s always a deal.

 

“I procure the ingredients and open the doorway; I get the doppelganger.” Crowley watches Sam. He could play poker with the best of them.

 

“You want me to sign over ownership of the doppelganger?” Sam asks. “Can you even own someone else? Isn’t that like slavery?”

 

“Um, Hello? King of Hell? How do you think we’ve been doing things? People sell their souls to me all the time.”

 

“But it wouldn’t be ours to sell,” Sam says, feeling sick.

 

“Of course it would. You’re going to create it. You’ll be its _Creator_.” Crowley’s frowning now, getting impatient.

 

They can’t do that can they? They can’t create a soul and immediately damn it to Hell. Can they? To save Dean?

 

The room falls into darkness and suddenly Crowley is looming, there’s no other word for it. “You have to be human to create a doppelganger,” Crowley intones. “Do we have a deal?”

 

Sam thinks of Terry Pratchett’s Death talking in all capital letters. His reaction to Crowley is usually one of annoyance mixed with disgust. Occasionally, Crowley gives them a reminder of his status as King of Hell and Sam feels a grudging respect for him, the kind that you feel for even the most repulsive enemy if they’re a competent opponent. Very rarely, Crowley drops the cutesy routine altogether and it’s terrifying.

 

Sam feels an awful chill settle in his bones. The Being asking for ownership of Dean’s double is very much the Demon King, without niceties, without embellishments. This level of menace means that the deal is important to Crowley. It also means that Sam should refuse at all costs but they both know that refusal was never an option, not if agreeing means fixing Dean. And Sam’s not bartering with his or Dean’s soul anyway. Not this time.

 

“Okay,” Sam says.

 

“Excellent,” Crowley beams, all cheerful business again and, Sam could swear, several feet shorter than he was a moment ago. The room is once again bright and Sam is keenly aware of the ticking of a clock, as though it had just re-started. “Sign on the dotted line please.”

 

The parchment is twelve feet long. Sam sighs.

 

Dean appears with three coffees. It disturbs Sam for two reasons: firstly because he never sees Dean use the door anymore and secondly because the spare coffee is clearly for Crowley, which means that Dean… invited him?

 

“Maybe you boys would like a little time alone to talk things over?” Crowley looks from Dean to Sam, back to Dean and lets out a barking laugh of delight and actually claps his hands together in glee.

 

Sam imagines that he can levitate the curved sword and impale Crowley with the power of his mind.

 

“Or maybe you boys would just like some time _alone_ ,” Crowley says, and he’s only talking to Sam now. “But you want to, don’t you Moose? Been wanting to _forever_.”

 

Sam pulls his gun but Crowley has already vanished, a puddle of coffee in his wake.

 

He looks to Dean for help but Dean is leering at him again, spine-tinglingly wicked.

 

 

****

 

 

When Dean asks for more blood it’s such a relief that Sam trips over himself in his eagerness to provide. Dean allows Sam to inject him but instead of falling back onto the couch as has become their custom, he gets to his feet and walks away, shoulders hunched in misery.

 

 _Broken little soldier_ , Sam thinks. He doesn’t follow. _Don’t worry, I’ll fix you_.

 

 


	9. It was always going to be this way

 

 

Sam wants to test Dean. He needs to know that Dean has enough humanity to get through. He wants the reassurance from his books that there is sufficient strength from Sam’s blood for Dean to endure the cleansing. There have never been many safety nets or backup plans in Sam’s life though, and even if such tests were possible they would be awkward.

 

Everything is awkward between them now. Every hit of Sam’s blood has Dean running scared. Even as a demon Dean is either absent or watching him from a distance, which has always made Sam awkward, and so Sam forges ahead with preparations and tells himself that Dean will be fine. By day he ignores the possibility of failure and by night he lies awake, paralyzed by an even worse possibility: that Crowley is playing him like a fiddle and intending to keep Dean for himself.

 

 

****

 

 

Dean’s eyes lock with Sam’s in the mirror. Dean doesn’t have to do much for the spell to work, just stand in the circle of candles. Sam is the one chanting in Latin, the incantation memorised, like every important incantation since he was fourteen.

 

When it’s complete there is a moment of silence. Dean is silent, gaze unwavering. Even Crowley is silent, standing off to one side, arms folded over his chest. Sam holds his breath. Dean’s mirror image winks at him. Ice cold terror sprints down Sam’s spine. It’s a corruption of physics, a pure horror movie moment. Sam is now looking at a new corruption of Dean. More than that: Sam is looking directly into Hell, into the eyes of the being that he has damned from the very moment of its creation.

 

“Move closer Dean,” Crowley says, and he sounds too eager to Sam’s ears. Sam doesn’t think, he just wraps his arms around Dean from behind and moves closer with him. Dean tenses and Crowley rolls his eyes and mutters, “Predictable.”

 

Sam breaks eye contact with the doppelganger, wanting something easier to look at. He looks down and gasps. Dean’s torso is doing the weirdest thing. Spikes of black that look like they should be solid are protruding from Dean, right through his clothes as if they didn’t exist. The spikes spread alarmingly and soon the whole of Dean’s body is a man shaped pin cushion of black, his face lost in the darkness. It’s like a man sized novelty pin-art board, the ones that usually hold handprints.

 

The spikes elongate, straining towards the mirror, and the doppelganger tilts its head in silent question. The largest spike, the one over Dean’s heart, touches the mirror and suddenly all the oil is pouring out of Dean through that one channel. Out of Dean and straight towards the doppelganger. Sam wants look away but he can’t.

 

The mirror takes on a rainbow sheen and bends inwards, drawing the oil through, bending as though is could draw them through too. It hums.

 

The oil circles the doppelganger like a twister suspended in slow motion. It routs around the doppelganger’s body until it finds its mouth and then suddenly, horrifyingly, wrenches open its jaws and forces its way inside.

 

When Dean’s doppelganger opens its eyes there are no pupils to pinpoint the direction of its gaze, just blackness from lid to lid. Sam can tell exactly where it’s looking though. Same place it’s been looking this whole time. Right at Sam.

 

He could never mistake the thing for his brother, not even when Dean had been utterly corrupt, before that first shot of demon blood. It smirks, eyes as black as sin, and the fires of Hell become visible, banking up behind and around it. The hum of the mirror winds up to a buzz and the tug on Dean gets harder, which makes no sense because all the demon oil is gone. Sam tightens his grip. No way is he losing his brother to Crowley and a slack grip this late in the game. If Dean’s getting sucked in then Sam’s going too. The buzz winds up further, clarifying into single tone, a clear piercing note, ever escalating. Sam wants to cover his ears against the crystal-shattering, ear-piercing force but that would mean letting go of Dean.

 

Just when it becomes truly unbearable the pull reverses. Sam catches the flattening and bulging of the mirror in his peripheral vision as it becomes momentarily convex, and a millisecond before it explodes outwards he sees the Mark of Cain appear on the doppelganger’s forearm.

 

They’re showered in tiny shards of glass. Sam curses and pulls Dean away, too late to save their skin from getting cut to shit. He swings Dean around and takes a good look into his brother’s forest green eyes.

 

Dean nods shakily. “It worked,” he says. Then clears his throat and repeats, “It’s gone,” and maybe Sam doesn’t look convinced because Dean holds out his forearm for inspection and bats his eyelashes exaggeratedly over his green green eyes.

 

Sam is transfixed. He tries to school his face into something civilized and only becomes aware of the death grip he has on Dean’s shoulder when Dean eases away with a lopsided smile. “Yeah.” He frees Dean hurriedly and looks off to the side, embarrassed to be caught in a chick-flick moment, but then Dean cuffs him lightly upside the head.

 

“Guess you’re stuck with the human version for a while,” and Dean’s grinning now. Sam’s heart stutters and swells as Dean pulls him into a bear hug that endures for long glorious heartbeats and Sam never wants to let go. “Thanks,” Dean whispers, and it’s quiet as dust in a sunbeam or the first hint of snow, but Sam hears him.

 

 

****

 

 

Thankfully the damage isn’t too bad. There are cuts on their faces and forearms and they bin the clothes they were wearing, despairing of ever getting rid of every little shard. Neither brother got any in his eyes and Sam wonders when Dean’s eyes became infinitely more important than his own.

 

Crowley is nowhere to be found, which is fine.

 

Sam goes through the motions of tidying up but all the while he's filled with repressed euphoria. It’s bubbling just below the surface. Everything else is irrelevant and absurd. There is only Dean, Dean, _Dean_ , here and with Sam. Dean is saved. Even the lurking sexual tension is secondary. Sam might be immortal and invincible but he's holding back, containing what feels like hysterical joy. He's throwing away used candles - they're tainted and can't be reused. Why are they bothering with used candles? They should be whooping and celebrating, driving very fast with the windows down or getting drunk and shooting things.

 

The tension is there though, between them and making them awkward. Dean keeps shooting him these little guilty glances that he thinks Sam misses. Sam feels each glance like an ice cube to overheated flesh and it’s making him twitch, winding him up. He gives up the charade of concentrating on anything else and openly watches Dean.

 

If Sam were to read Dean’s fortune with tarot cards then he would need one central card to represent Dean. This would be the ‘significator’, and the card most often used is number twenty two: The Fool. The Fool is the ultimate portrait of humanity with all its hopes and flaws. This is him, Sam realises. Card number twenty two: Sam’s brother. He’s so beautiful.

 

Dean stops tidying too. He looks right back at Sam. He fidgets a little under the scrutiny but doesn’t demand to know what Sam is staring at. He knows. They both know. And _Christ_ , Dean is just letting it happen.

 

Sam tackles him, shoves Dean’s shirts up out of the way whilst fumbling with his own jeans with his other hand. There’s no time for talking or undressing. This is a fucking sexual emergency. Sam has to get his cock into contact with Dean’s skin _pronto_ or else he might actually die.

 

Dean pushes back, unbuttoning his own jeans, which open easily and Sam snarls in frustration, but then it’s okay because he’s free and Dean has a hand around his cock. Sam yanks Dean to him, pulling their bodies tight and shuffling forwards until there’s a wall at Dean’s back to shove him against.

 

Dean gives up trying to touch Sam with his hand and his head thunks against the wall, falling sideways as he surrenders his neck. Sam ruts into him, suck-biting his throat and pinning his shoulders in place with a grip that’s too hard but he can’t care, their cocks rubbing together at last. They slide against Dean’s belly, his hip, and it wouldn’t usually be enough friction but there’s nothing _usual_ about this situation. Sam fucks into the slippery mess between them with an animalistic frenzy borne of fifteen years frustration and it’s so good. Dean moans softly and lets him have it all.

 

Sam feels Dean’s hands cup both of his ass cheeks as Dean’s body begins to tense, and then Sam’s cock is sliding through pulses of Dean’s come and Sam’s orgasm rushes up out of nowhere and engulfs him. Usually he’s quiet but this time it’s too much to keep inside and so he _growls_ it out, teeth bared against fragile skin until it’s over and his body stops shuddering, slumps against Dean.

 

Sam screws his eyes shut and breathes Dean in, nuzzling into his shirt. The smell of his brother all around him and the dawning realisation of what they’ve just done combine to give Sam a crazy rush of love, like a swelling of all his internal organs. He falls to his knees and Dean makes a chocked startled noise when Sam starts to lap-suck-kiss at the mess of their mingle come.

 

Sam’s starving for it. He imagines that their essence can satisfy the throb that’s running all through his body, feeling something like an exquisite ache. It’s as though someone has struck Sam’s heart and now the gong-like reverberations are going to shake him apart.

 

Dean hisses, “ _Fuck_ ,” and makes involuntary jerking movements, huff of a laugh when Sam licks at his spent cock. He threads his fingers through Sam’s hair and tugs, and after a few more licks into Dean’s navel Sam allows himself to be dragged up and manoeuvred to his own bedroom.

 

 

****

 

 

“We can destroy the First Blade now?”

 

Dean hums thoughtfully, his fingertips trail over the hairs of Sam’s forearm and Sam shivers in delight. “Pretty sure it can’t be destroyed.”

 

“The bottom of the deepest ocean then?” Sam cups Dean’s face and makes Dean look at him. “The pull of it has gone though, right? You’re free of it now?”

 

Dean shakes his head free and pins Sam’s chin with his own, saying, “All yours now,” whilst trying to suck in Sam’s bottom lip. He gets an elbow to the chest from Sam and they scuffle for a while but end up the same: Dean on his side and Sam on his back looking up at him.

 

They’re in truer harmony than ever. It’s like a folk song that Sam recognises even though he’s never heard it before: so right that the harmony _couldn’t_ be any different. They’re major thirds singing sweetly of the comfort of home.

 

When Sam had dared to imagine them together he had worried that Dean might just play along, giving Sam what he wanted to keep them together. There’s no doubt in Sam anymore. Dean loves him as fiercely and heretically as Sam loves Dean. They’re perfection together, resonating like Goethe's architectural harmonics and measured in the Da Vinci-esque proportions of Dean’s face. It was always going to be this way in the end.

 

“It was always going to be this way,” Sam says and immediately feels mortified because it’s too new and too soon to broadcast sweeping declarations of love. It probably always will be.

 

Dean’s eyebrows dance in surprise. What he says is, “Maybe we shouldn't think too hard about how long I've wanted to do this.”

 

“Why?” And Sam _needs_ to know, now that Dean has brought it up. His pulse jumps and he shallows his breath, trying to keep his reactions minimal from long practice so that Dean won’t see how important it is. Dean might keep it from him, use it to tease.

 

The corner of Dean’s mouth twitches as though Dean can read Sam’s thoughts. “Because you were way too young,” he admits and rolls onto his back, eyes hidden in his arm. Sam thinks that he might actually be covering a blush, which is glorious and unprecedented.

 

Sam remembers being the smaller brother, desperately torn between jealousy of Dean’s impossible strength and broad shoulders, and the overwhelming lust that accompanied thoughts about Dean’s body. He had always lost to Dean when they had sparred but the frustration at losing had been at odds with the joy of surrender: Sam had wanted nothing more than to be pinned down beneath Dean, overpowered and forced to come.

 

“You know,” Dean says, arm still covering his face, “When I was a demon I could kinda sense your feelings.” He reaches over and puts his fingers to Sam’s temple. “Stronger if I touched your skin.

 

Sam’s skin tingles at the touch and he remembers how Dean used to be, before modesty caught up with him, parading around with only a towel, and sometimes without. One hot summer in Texas there had been a campaign of nudity that had almost shattered Sam’s sanity.

 

Dean rolls onto him, insinuating himself between Sam’s sheet covered legs. “I still see you Sammy,” Dean says, low and intimate. It’s too soon for Sam’s cock to be taking an interest again but apparently his body didn’t get the memo because he’s half hard. He groans when Dean rubs his thigh there. Too soon but so fucking good.

 

If kissing were an Olympic sport then Dean could bring home a gold for the Yes Men. He makes it difficult for Sam to think, or want to think. Vague snippets of the day flash through Sam’s mind, which is mostly unoccupied, the way that the mind of a man who is floating on a lazy warm ocean might be unoccupied, save for the need to determine the exact blue of the sky.

 

Dean tastes so good. Crowley loses and Sam takes all. Oh yeah. Sam feels his stupid dimples but he can’t keep the big grin off his face. He doesn’t really want to, except that it breaks their kiss. “I got you back,” he tells Dean again.

 

“Guess you did.”

 

“Crowley was going to keep you.”

 

Dean mock-shudders. “Yeah well. All he got is a shoddy knock off. Sucks to be him.”

 

The angels are all wrong about Heaven. If Sam died now and went to Heaven he wouldn’t even notice. Not while Dean’s kissing him.

 

After a while Sam breaks the kiss again and says, “Dean?”

 

Dean growls at him and tries to bring their mouths back together but Sam won’t let him. Dean makes an incredulous face and says, “What?”

 

Sam has a niggling guilty sensation fluttering around in his guts. It’s the same sensation he felt as a kid when Dean had dared him to shoplift candy bars, and he got away with it, but Sam had wished for days afterwards that he hadn’t done it. “What do you think happened to the doppelganger?”

 

 

****

 

 

The room is dominated by a solid looking four poster bed with blood-red velvet drapes. Crowley’s shooting-up kit is arrayed on the bedside table with an empty bag that reads ‘A+’. Crowley himself is stretched out on the plush looking bedding, spread-eagled, wrists and ankles bound with lengths of rope tied in expert knots.

 

Dean’s double slinks around the bed wearing only a smirk and a low riding pair of jeans. He tests the restraint on Crowley’s right wrist and follows the arm downwards with his fingertips, coming to rest against Crowley’s ribs. Crowley visibly shudders.

 

“You sure about this?” the doppelganger asks in Dean’s voice, giving Crowley’s right nipple a considering twist through the cotton of his shirt.

 

“Yes,” Crowley pushes his chest up and his eyelids droop a little. “But there’s one more thing.”

 

The doppelganger waits patiently, tugging lightly at the nipple before dismissing it with a flick. Crowley makes an approving grunt and shimmies his upper body, testing the restraints for himself.

 

Their eyes meet, the doppelganger’s a perfect imitation of Dean’s green, and Crowley says, “Call me Sammy.”

 

 

****

 

 

Dean watches Sam sleep.

 

He’s never seen Sam smile so much as an adult. It makes him feel like a king, to have put that smile there.

 

Sam thinks that Dean figured him out because of the demon oil but that’s not true. Dean understood about Sam’s hungry looks, and the special brand of frustration only for Dean, many years ago. If Sam thought about it he’d see the clues. The barflys had stopped. With the exception of Carmelita (and the memory of her is like warm honey but nothing compared to the forbidden fruit of his baby brother), Dean stopped sleeping around altogether. He covered himself in layers so as not to torment Sam with his body, while all the time silently willing Sam to make the first move because Dean couldn’t.

 

Sam thinks he’s so smart. Dean nuzzles into all that geek-boy hair falling on the pillow and smiles. Sam doesn’t understand what it means to have Dean Winchester as a lover yet. He probably thinks he has Dean all figured out. Dean’s going to make it his personal mission to keep Sam on his toes.

 

Sam snuffles in his sleep and Dean is getting lonely. He craves Sam’s hands on his body again, something he’s never going to be able to get enough of. Sam has been asleep way too long anyway. More than enough time to recover and regroup.

 

Dean licks Sam’s soft cock into his mouth and sets about waking up his brother in the best way he knows how.

 

 


End file.
